


He Left Cold Fire Under My Skin

by Kamalika



Category: Derek Hale - Fandom, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 03, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2018-08-20 04:56:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8236819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamalika/pseuds/Kamalika
Summary: 'Allison didn’t do well with conflicts. In her world view Derek was both the evil incarnate and a monster, the master manipulator, the cunning puppeteer who was fond of sinking his hooks into innocent school children, turning their lives upside down, using them for his own devious plans.'Quite naturally, she was not prepared to deal with the fact when Derek not only rescued her once (Allison understood that one time may be an accident), but several times and continued to do it even at a great personal cost.Or the fact that she had, of late, started to imagine what it would be like to have Derek Hale trust her.                                                                                      or                              When the darkness attacks and devours Allison instead of Stiles in Season 3B!





	1. 'Cold smoke seeping out of colder throats'

Allison doesn't like the feeling that settled at the pit of her stomach on seeing the lifeless body of Erica in Derek Hale’s arms, or more specifically Derek’s reaction to it.

It has been two days and she is still unable to shake off the image.

She doesn't like to be conflicted over her own feelings. She likes to see the world in black and white. It puts everything into perspective. Either you are good or you are evil, either you are human or you are a monster and there is nothing in between, no grey areas. There shouldn’t be grey areas for they mean conflicts.

Allison doesn't do well with conflicts.

In her world view Derek is both the evil incarnate and a monster, the master manipulator, the cunning puppeteer who is fond of sinking his hooks into innocent school children, turning their lives upside down, using them for his own devious plans.

So he was not supposed to look like that, like the untimely death of a teenager devastated him. He is not allowed to look that vulnerable. There shouldn’t have been that one lone tear rolling down his cheek and he shouldn’t have cradled Erica’s body to his chest and shouldn’t have folded her into the passenger seat of his car gently, like she was still alive, pausing to cup her face for a few moments staring intently at her like he was trying to memorize her face before she was gone forever.

No...just...no!

To speak the truth, she hasn’t trusted Derek since the day they met for the first time just outside Lydia’s home, when a party was raging inside and Scott had just shot out of the building and disappeared into the night without so much as a goodbye. She didn’t trust the man with an obviously fake smile and bad-boy-wannabe wardrobe. It was surprising that even then she didn’t hesitate to get into his Camaro when he offered her a lift. Allison knew better than to hop into the car with a complete stranger. For some reason Derek felt safe. Somehow Allison knew her parents would not discover her horribly mutilated body in some dark alley next morning.

Derek was a perfect gentleman. He never gave Allison an once-over. In fact, he never even glanced at her direction after making sure the temperature was set to her liking. 

“Is it comfortable?” Allison remembers him asking.

“Yeah,” Allison replied.

Allison wanted to ask how he knew Scott for Derek was evidently much older than them and he had certainly never mentioned a friend called Derek before, but the questions got stuck inside her throat. Derek didn’t seem much inclined to talk. His face was set in a deep scowl after the brilliant (but fake, ever so fake) smile he had flashed at her at first. Allison didn’t like to admit it but she found Derek a bit intimidating which surprised her and put her on a defensive mode. Allison didn’t like to brag, but there were very few people who could unnerve her, and Derek, somehow managed to do that. So except for the surreptitious glances at the broody driver, Allison didn’t interact with Derek, at all.

She had been too busy gripping the seat belt with knuckles gone white for it was suddenly a stupid idea to lock herself into a car with a dark and moody stranger at night.

If Derek noticed, he never commented on it. His own grip on the steering wheel was loose and once they had reached her house, he just sat there, without moving, staring fixedly ahead.

Allison had slipped out of the car quietly and before she could even turn around to thank the driver, the Camaro was already speeding away.

After a couple of days she found her jacket inside her locker at school. She guessed it was Scott who had collected it from Derek’s car where she had left it by mistake. She bumped Scott’s shoulder.

“Thanks,” she directed a shy smile at him, playing with the lapel of the jacket.

“What for?” Scott smiled back in his goofy way.

“Um,” Allison was unsure how to broach the topic that he had actually somehow planted her jacket into a locked locker and that she didn’t mind it at all without making it sound weird.

“Hey you got you jacket back!” Scott had frowned at her. “How did you...” he had trailed off and then his expression suddenly cleared and he looked supremely pissed.

“Scott?” Allison touched his arm and he visibly shook himself out of it.

“Yeah...yeah...I just...I just remembered I forgot my Econ homework.” Scott stalked away somewhat dazedly, leaving her even more confused.

Allison didn’t know why she suddenly remembered the stupid jacket.

She must be losing it completely.

Yeah, that must be the only explanation why her eyes are burning and she has been staring at the ceiling for the past two hours, unable to sleep.

She can somehow still feel Derek’s warm hands grabbing her roughly by her forearms, spinning her round, demanding explanation in a barely contained fury.

She can still see the hurt that crossed over Derek’s features for a nanosecond as she basically called him a monster in his face.

It was purely defence mechanism for she knows better. She knew Derek’s anger was not selfish. He was ready to be sacrificed to prevent bloodshed. She knew he yelled at her though she had basically saved their lives because he was mad they would murder an innocent person.

But her anger rose to the surface immediately when challenged. It was stupid and immature.

She knows that quite well.

Then comes the final straw – the image of Derek almost ripped to pieces by his own beta and his sister in the boiler room of the school – an image painted in horrific details in Allison’s mind, more so because she only heard it from Isaac who was in near-hysterics over the possible death of his mentor. Her father made her leave with him before sunrise and so she had to get the details from Isaac later. She never thought she would interact with Isaac normally, without arrows and fangs involved. It was surprisingly easy to talk to him when she was not wearing the invisible goggles of pure hatred that was a gift from Kate and her grandfather.

All these images are probably swirling in her mind to distract her from thinking how her mom had tried to kill Scott in cold blood and it was a part that his grandfather effectively forgot to tell her when he had insisted how Derek Hale was the sole cause of her mother’s death.

With an angry snort directed at nobody she climbs down her bed and tugs on a pair of jeans.

...

“What are you doing here?” Derek asks tonelessly, yanking the metal door open.  No ‘hello’ or anything. He doesn't even ask where she got his address from. Like he is used to have people who have been out for his blood to find him at his home quite easily. Like he almost expects it and it is nothing new.

“Why did you do it?” Allison is straight to the point ignoring the way her heart is beating a mile a minute. It has not been easy. She had been standing there for a quarter of an hour without knocking and finally Derek probably couldn’t take it anymore.

Derek is looking brand new of course, wearing an old black t-shirt and jeans (does the guy ever get out of jeans) and shoes (who wear shoes when they are at home, at two fucking o’ clock in the morning?).

Isaac said he looked like he had gone through a shredder last morning. Boyd and the other girl (who turned out to be Cora Hale, Derek’s younger sister) were unconscious and unharmed. Apparently Derek had held them throughout the whole night so that they didn’t make a mincemeat of the new teacher (what the hell was she doing at school at that hour anyway?) and they, in turn, had slashed and clawed at Derek during the entire time.

Derek stares at her and Allison cannot get a read on his look. He looks as he always does, grim and slightly pissed. If he is surprised to see Allison there, he certainly does not let it show.

“You have to be more specific.” Derek says slowly.

“Why did you merely hold them down when you could have killed them? Why did you not let Scott come inside to help you? Why did you go inside when they were already perfectly secure? What if the teacher was trapped? It would have been another number to add to the incidents of animal attacks. Why did you take it upon yourself to save her? You are not supposed to save people.”

Allison realises she is yelling by the time the last sentence is delivered. Thank God Derek doesn't seem to have any neighbours.

“Why, because I am a monster?” Derek quirks one eyebrow at her. “Since you hunters are the heroes that rescue people from the big bad, you have some kind of monopoly over saving everybody?”

“No, I...” Allison looks away, frustrated. “Maybe I just want to understand.”

She looks back at Derek whose face betrays the slightest hint of surprise before he puts his stoic mask back on.

“Well, what is there to understand except for you want to find an excuse to try to kill me or my pack or my sister?” He says. “Again.”

Allison bits her lip.

“I am sorry.”  

The expression of utter shock on Derek’s face should be insulting. She is a teenager, but that doesn't mean she is completely unreasonable ok?

 “Come again?”

Allison sighs. This has been such a stupid idea.

“I said, I am sorry. For trying to kill you.” It is difficult to utter those words, but it is necessary. She thinks herself to be mature enough to own up to her mistakes. “And for Erica and Boyd. And Isaac.”

Suddenly Derek sways sideways and before she can blink, he is steady on his feet again. Allison narrows her eyes. Now that she is looking closely she notices Derek is very pale and he is holding himself very rigidly, well more rigidly than usual.

“Are you still hurt?” Allison blurts out. (Just shut up! You don’t care if he lives or dies.)

“No,” Derek glares at her, but his fingers twitches, as if he wants to instinctively cover some invisible wound from the sharp eyes of the hunters, the ones that hunt and kill his kind and he doesn't want to show any weakness.

The thought shouldn’t make her sad.

“Derek, are you going to finish the conversation at the door or –” a girl’s voice drifts from the inside.

“Cora, I told you to be upstairs.” Derek says without looking back.

“But Derek –”

“Upstairs.” Derek turns his head this time and snarls. “Right now.” He cocks his head, probably to listen whether she obeys the instruction or not and then turns back to face Allison.

That, kind of stung!

She did apologise, something she doesn't do quite often. She will repeat it if needed. She will say it until he believes it.

Allison doesn't know why it is important to make him believe her.

“Well, I am sorry.” She says, a bit more firmly this time. “I am...” she grimaces, “I am not going to hurt you or your sister.”

Derek crosses his arms.

“Ok.”

“Ok?”

“Ok.”

Allison chews her lips for a few moments. Derek’s face is getting more and more pinched with every passing second. It looks like he is in pain or something.

“You sure you are not hurt?” Allison says, trying not to sound as concerned as she feels (what is with that even???).

“No.” Derek insists, shuffling a bit on his feet and it draws her attention for Derek DOES NOT shuffle.

“But you are.” Why the hell is she arguing with an alpha werewolf at the front door of his den over whether he is bleeding to his death or not?

She does not care.

“I am...I mean...can I help? With anything? Is there something I need to know?”

Shut up, for God’s sake just close your mouth. Right now!

Derek sighs, long suffering.

“There is a pack of werewolves. Alphas. They were the ones who had kidnapped Erica and Boyd.”

Allison starts. She really didn’t expect Derek to give her any kind of information. She starts to open her mouth asking for their whereabouts, but Derek beats her to it.

“And no you cannot help. Stay out of their way. They are too dangerous.”

Well, just what she needs; another bunch of werewolves, alphas at that, rampaging through the town.

“Your concern is touching, but you don’t need to worry about me.” Allison retorts icily. “I can take care of myself.”

“Don’t be a stubborn fool.” Derek’s voice is low and furious. “You have no idea what you are dealing with. These are not...you have never seen anything like these. They are capable of putting Peter to shame. Just.Stay.Out. I mean it.”

“I need to check it out if they are going to be a danger to my friends. Besides, why do you care if I die, huh? I am a hunter. I hurt you and your pack. I almost killed Isaac. Why would you care?”

“Because I don’t want to be responsible for another death.” Derek shouts.

Suddenly he sways for real this time and it is not something Allison imagines. The colour is completely gone from his cheeks and he rests his back on the doorframe, hunching down slightly. He clutches his lower abdomen tightly.

Allisons’s hands have come up without thinking the moment Derek seemed like he was about to fall face down on the concrete floor. Derek’s palm comes loose slowly and it is dyed crimson. Derek’s shirt is wet at the front, Allison now realises. With blood. Allison touches Derek on the arm and he flinches back violently and Allison immediately removes her hand.

She really doesn't want to know where that reaction comes from.

“What happened?” She asks, appalled. “I thought it should have healed by now.”

Derek is quiet for a moment.

“The alphas happened.”

“What do they want from you?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Derek straightens up again and faces her, squaring his shoulders. “They are not going to get it.”

“But what if –” But what if you die from it? What if I never get to show you that I am serious when I say I am sorry? What if I never get to know what it feels like for you to trust me? What if...

“Go home Allison.” Derek sounds tired, no completely drained out. Even though he is holding himself straight, it seems to take everything in him.

“What did they do to you?” Allison wonders aloud.

“Nothing that concerns you.” Derek is getting irritated again.

“God, why are you so...” Allison purses her lips. Pig-headed? Stupidly heroic? Bent on being a martyr? She can still see Derek pulling out arrows from his own flesh and haul Scott up so that he could drag him to safety. She can imagine Derek, weakened by wolfsbane, trying to save Scott from her mother. She can imagine Derek holding down his betas so that they didn’t kill Miss Blake, a complete stranger to him.

Did she miss something completely when she judged him so harshly in the past?

“What did they do?” She repeats doggedly.

Derek searches her face, like he is trying to gauge her intention.

“I don’t see how it is relevant.”

“Humour me for this one time, will you?”

Derek opens his mouth, then closes it again. Shuffles from one foot to the other. Fidgets a bit. It must be killing him, to stand tall like this.

“They skewed me through a steel pipe, ok?” Derek finally grits out angrily. “Satisfied now? Would you like to have a go at me? When I am still bleeding from the hole in my middle? Is that why you are so curious?”

Allison rocks back on her heels at the force of his anger.

“No...no, I wound’t.” God, is she tearing up now? For Derek? Because the man can't seem to take a break? Or because he still thinks she is a psychopath bent of killing him?

Derek’s face softens.

“Go home to your father Allison.” He repeats. “There are battles ahead and he is likely to get involved whether he wants it or not. Just be there...with him. Do your homework, cheer your friends at Lacrosse. Be a sixteen-year old. Leave the werewolf business to me or probably to your father.”

“I am seventeen.” Allison says glumly.

“What?” Allison has a feeling Derek has trouble focusing. Because it is so apparent now that he is in pain, when she is looking closely, and she is making him stand here and talk like an utter moron.

“Nothing. I said goodbye.”Allison says and she is suddenly at a loss of how to make a graceful exit. “I guess...I will see you around.”

“I hope not.” Derek retorts without heat.

Allison smiles. Damn it to hell but Derek is sassy when he is not throwing around threats and glares and it shouldn’t be amusing (she wouldn’t think of a word like ‘endearing’ in context of Derek Hale, not in a million years).

“Ok.” She snaps, throwing back Derek’s earlier response.

If Allison doesn't know better she would think the twitch at the corner of Derek’s lips is the beginning of a smile.

“Ok.” He concedes.

Allison turns round and hears the metal door slide shut as she enters into the elevator.

Well, that just happened!

Allison slips through the window of her room and climbs into bed without changing.

She sleeps like a log until the alarm goes off in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read my original fantasy novel on my website [here](https://www.theauthorkamalika.org/).


	2. 'Blame it on my ADD baby...'

Allison is perched on the ledge from where she can clearly see the battle raging below her, on the under-construction top-floor of an empty mall. It is not going well. The dark lady, Kali she thinks, has her clawed feet planted on Cora’s neck and Derek is looking back and forth between her and Boyd who is pinned down by Ennis with Deucalion gloating over them. He wants Derek to choose one person who will be killed so that the rest survives.

She nocks an arrow to the bow, tucks her chin, takes a deep breath and aims.

Twang.

Kali howls in pain and lets Cora go in an instant.

The battle is on again and she shoots another arrow at the conjoined twins who are clawing Scott in a murderous rage. The fucking thing just won’t go down. She strings another arrow and aims again. It hits the wall this time. The third one plunges right into its belly and the twins separate, turning into humans, freeing Scott.

Only now Allison sees Derek fighting with Ennis and how they are inching towards the edge of the floor dangerously.

It plays out in slow motion. Scott claws at Ennis’s calf, trying to help Derek, but it has the opposite effect as Ennis loses his balance and topples over. Only he is clinging to Derek so that Derek goes down too. Allison is frozen with her heart in her mouth for a second or two before she can feel her feet move in an urgency she hasn’t felt for a long time.  She finds Derek’s bloody and broken form lying haphazardly on the unmoving escalator. She barely glances at the hulk of a werewolf that has landed on the railing of the escalator a few feet away.

“Derek!” She is almost afraid to call out. Derek’s eyes are slightly open and through the log lashes his pale eyes are still and lifeless. He looks dead.

Allison’s hand flies to her mouth and before she can check the pulse there are sounds of people coming down the stairs. Allison retreats, blinking back the tears rising to her eyes.

She shouldn’t be the one crying over a Derek Hale, sworn enemy of her family, bad boy extraordinaire who ruined her ex-boyfriend’s life, creating monsters in his wake. Apparently her heart hasn’t got the memo.

...

The day Allison comes to know Derek is alive is the same day she learns Boyd is dead, impaled on his alpha's claws as the twins held Derek down. She decides to feel bad later because of feeling oddly relieved. Not because Boyd is dead. God, no! She has come far from when she was coached by Kate and Gerard to think that all supernatural creatures are abominations and therefore are better dead. But because Derek is alive. It just catches her off-guard for she hasn't expected to be so relieved. She didn't expect to feel anything at all, but she is evidently more confused about where her heart stands with regards to a certain alpha werewolf than she originally thought.

She doesn't dwell upon it for long though for stranger things are happening around her. An evil druid is on a vicious killing spree rivaling that of the alpha pack. Scott almost committed suicide in a motel on a field trip from school. Her father is acting increasingly mysterious for a man who refuses to have anything to do with the supernatural any more. And finally Isaac Lahey is on her friends list in all social media sites. She is spending time with him. A lot of it, since Lydia is busy lusting after one of the evil twins and she cannot quite bring herself to ignore it. Isaac described how Derek had been completely catatonic for a few hours after Boyd’s death. Allison can’t even begin to imagine how it must feel like. His dad taught her what a pack is to a werewolf. It is more than a family. The ties are deeper, more meaningful and the loss of one affects a wolf at the visceral level. And now Derek is packless once again for Isaac is Scott's for all intents and purposes.

Allison wonders how Derek copes with all these deaths when she has a hard time to come to terms with the fact that her mother is dead. Cruel as it may sound, it helped to know her death was caused by her own murderous intent on Scott. Allison knew her mother was not one of the good guys, but she never thought she was capable of Kate-level psychopathic madness. She guesses one just has to push the right buttons.

Sometimes Allison wonders if Derek is right in not trusting her. If she can turn out to be like her aunt or her grandfather or like her mom one day.

She shakes herself and hardens her heart. She makes plans with Isaac to solve the mystery surrounding the killings. She visits Gerard with Scott and asks for information. She keeps busy playing a vigilante, but one who saves people rather than killing them.

She will not become another Kate Argent.

...

Everything is falling apart.

The evil darach is none other than Miss Jennifer Blake, the English teacher to save whom Derek nearly died not even a month back and who had somehow seduced Derek in the hope that he would protect her from the alpha pack who is trying to kill her. As if that is not enough to emotionally manipulate Derek with, she has somehow infected Cora with mistletoes. Derek will not leave her dying sister's side and Isaac is furious with him.

Allison doesn’t comment on the fact that the darach has done it intentionally to keep Derek out of picture or to probably blackmail him further. She doesn’t comment that she would probably have done the same in Derek’s position. She doesn’t have the time or energy to argue with Isaac about his misplaced anger for the whole thing has become way too personal now after the bitch has kidnapped her father as well as the sheriff and Melissa McCall.

She along with Stiles and Scott are going to drown into a tub of ice at Deaton’s clinic, to act as surrogate sacrifices to save their parents.

She refuses to think about the hurt in Scott’s eyes as she chooses Isaac as her anchor. She is over Scott but God knows she loves the guy still. With Isaac, it is simple, uncomplicated. Isaac has become her best friend within a short span of time right along with Lydia. Or it is not much a matter of replacement as much as being kindred spirits, however depressing it may be to bond over dead parents.

So here she is, willingly letting herself drown into a metal tub, with her friend's baby blue eyes staring at her through the thin layer of water as he holds her down, gently but firmly. Allison watches, curious as the bubbles leave her mouth and break at the surface. Deaton has warned them how being dead for a few seconds will open their hearts to forces of darkness. But there is no darkness now. It is quiet, peaceful even. Allison has always imagined death to be violent and terrible, but she has been wrong. If her father was not kidnapped by a psychopath waiting somewhere to be slaughtered, she would have smiled.

For death looks fucking beautiful. 


	3. 'Alone and lost in paradise'

The dreams start exactly nine days after the surrogate sacrifice.

They are not so bad. Allison never wakes up screaming into the night like Stiles who has been plagued with nightmares. She has not even been hallucinating like Scott or go sleepwalking into the woods like Lydia.

She thinks she has it easy, until the dreams start.

Again, they are not terrible or scary, just normal dreams, except for one person features in each one of them – her aunt Kate. She sees herself in the backyard of their old house with aunt Kate teaching her how to grip the arrow, how to draw it back and rest the shaft against her cheek, angling her head slightly, tucking her thumb in.

Kate reaches out and tucks a lock of hair behind her left ear.

“Come on sweetie. Exhale and release.”

Twang.

Allison squints ahead, eager to know if she has hit the target but she sits up in her bed instead.

It is the same dream every time. Sometimes the location changes to Beacon Hills Preserve. Sometimes she looks younger and Kate looks youthful, even more dazzling than she remembers her. Her leather jacket swishing gently as reaches up and readjusts Allison’s elbow, her lilac perfume strong in her nostrils, blond hair gleaming in sunlight.

Everything is so clear except for her target. She never gets to see her target. Though she vaguely senses the target is far away from where they are standing. Sometimes she imagines this must be what a sniper feels, staking out on a roof, almost invisible, stalking an unsuspecting prey far down below through the sight. They are also waiting for something. Kate preparing her, teaching her to be infallible for the target is difficult. But she feels it in his guts that it is getting easier every day. That they are getting closer and closer. She would have thought it should bring a sense of accomplishment, but it doesn’t. Instead there is this terrible sense of foreboding like something bad is going to happen. She shakes off the feeling.

Peace has settled down on Beacon Hills. Alpha pack is defeated. Scott is an alpha now and Derek Hale has apparently sacrificed his spark to save his sister’s life. Is it only co-incidental that all their sacrifices happened at exactly the same point of time though neither had the knowledge of the others? Allison wonders. But she doesn’t dwell upon it for long. What is the use when the net result was a victory against not one but two formidable enemies. What does it matter that Derek Hale is not only packless now, but in all probability an omega for Allison is sure Derek will never submit to Scott. She doesn’t presume to know Derek that well, but this much she understands about Derek’s personality that Derek may have a high regard for Scott as a person, but not so much for Scott as a werewolf. It is only understandable because as a born wolf Derek embraces his lineage even though it has brought him nothing but grief and loss.

Derek is proud of what he is whereas Scott will never be reconciled to his supernatural side. He whines about it often enough. Allison once pointed out how it has helped him by curing his asthma attack or making him strong and agile enough to be an overnight lacrosse star. She was merely playing the devil’s advocate and she certainly didn’t expect Scott to go berserk over how his life was ruined because of the bite, yet again. Allison had sat patiently, letting him rant away for a good half an hour and finally silenced him with a kiss. Back then, her mom was still alive and Gerard was out for Derek’s blood. So everything was simpler, clearer. Much happened since then and when Allison got back from Paris this year, she suddenly found herself immune to Scott’s puppy eyes. It was not that she had stopped loving him. But she was getting tired of his self-righteousness. She saw some of her own mistakes reflected in Scott and she tried to reason with him. Then she found herself getting annoyed. After all how could Scott’s rant of the hardships of becoming a werewolf affect her still when she no longer thought it to be a curse. She had learnt to think of them as a different kind of people, but still very much human, sometimes more relatable than some of the humans of her acquaintance.

She had moved on. Apparently Scott didn’t. So she let him go, knowing even though in his mind she was still his anchor, she was but a placebo. She hadn’t talked to Scott about it for he wouldn’t understand. He is simple and uncomplicated and he has remained unchanged at heart while she has undergone a transformation of such epic proportion that she can hardly recognize herself nowadays.

So, Derek and Scott, brothers for all intents and purposes and exactly like a pair of siblings stand at opposite poles, each firm in their conviction, each driving each other mad with stubbornness, each refusing to meet the other halfway – and therefore there is no question of submission. From either of them.

Anyways, it doesn’t really matter since Derek is gone. She knows it for she has been to his loft a few days back. She had woken up in the middle of night again and she had no better place to go. Calling Scott would have been awkward. With all their shared history, they have never been friends. From the very first day they met, they had been…something more. They never got the chance to go down the friendship route. Lydia was with Aiden and she didn’t want to disturb her during their post-coital cuddle time. Isaac would have answered, she knew, in spite of the ungodly hour.

But she chose Derek instead.

She hadn’t seen him since the fateful day at Beacon Hills hospital when he had looked so defeated because Cora had been dying and Scott had gone off to join hands with Deucalion.

The metal door of the loft was locked from the outside. The building stood dark and ominously silent. Allison waited for a few minutes in the hope Derek would materialize from the shadows in spite of all evidence to the contrary, but there was no sign of him.

“What is Derek up to these days?” She tries to keep her tone casual as she grills Isaac at school. She asks this in between the discussion about registering for PSAT and the boys’ latest exploits at lacrosse.

“He is not here.” Isaac shrugs. “Taken off with Cora. Said something about taking her far away from this cursed town.”

Allison remains silent for a minute.

“Is this town cursed?” She asks.

“Beats me.” Isaac says. “But it is all I have known. I cannot leave it even if I want to.”

Then he laughs bitterly. “I suddenly realized I have been Stockholm syndromed by a fucking town. How about that?”

“It is not that bad.” Scott argues, his eyes fixed on the cute, new student Kira who has started sitting with them for a couple of days now. Kira smiles shyly into her soda and looks down. Then the discussion turns to the pros and cons of living in Beacon Hills.

Allison never gets to ask if Derek is ever coming back.

…

The voices start exactly eighteen days after the surrogate sacrifice.

They are bad.

They tell her stories and she listens, enraptured. The stories are set at some faraway land where snow lands softly on cherry trees and the gardens are adorned with fountains. Then the stories turn gory and end up in massacres and bloodbath and she can almost smell the warm blood on snow.

“It is beautiful.” The voices whisper to her. “When the fountain runs red with the blood of all the members of the family. Cut open by swords so sharp that they don’t make a single sound as the heads are severed from the body.”

“Death is so beautiful.” They say. “Like torn wings of a butterfly, like bones gleaming under stark moonlight, like the desolation of the ruins of a civilization, like foreign winds among the trees, like a tumbleweed rolling aimlessly…it comes and steals your breath away.”

Allison weeps into the crook of her arm for the words stir something inside her heart, tugs at some invisible string and she feels so hollow inside.

“Hush dear girl.” They say. “We will rock you to sleep gently…gently…over the mountains and under the cloud…we are here to be with you when everybody leaves you and you are alone. We will be there when people will see you but won’t see you, when people will hear you, but won’t hear you. We will be with you. We promise.”

Allison takes her bow and arrow and goes into the preserve. Without Lydia this time because, of course she is with Aiden, again. Scott is hanging out with Stiles and Isaac. And Allison doesn’t mind to be left alone.

She can take care of herself.

Stiles doesn’t have nightmares anymore and Scott’s hallucinations have disappeared. Lydia is looking more at peace with herself, finally in her elements. Aiden and Ethan are sitting at their table, looking subdued, but happier. Kira is forming a tentative friendship with them all but is still painfully shy. Allison smiles and smiles at her friends. Life goes on and she seems to be stuck in a past that means less and less to everybody. They were on the winning side of the battle and they didn’t lose anything.

A shadow is lifting and she can see her friends laughing freely once again, their faces untroubled by the cloud threatening to overcast her sky.

“Allison?”

The arrow slips from her hand and lands on the floor with a soft sound. The quiet murmuring in her ears has stopped as well.

“You ok?” Profession Yukimura asks.

Allsion looks around to see the faces of her classmates twisting in their seats to stare at her. She blinks and glances surreptitiously at the floor.

There is no sign of an arrow.

“Allison.” The teacher calls out again.

“Yeah.” She says. “Sorry. I just…I am not feeling well.” She lies weakly.

“You can take a break.” Mr. Yukimura looks concerned. He is Kira’s father and their new history teacher. He has the same soft eyes and compassionate smile as hers.

“It is ok.” Allison reassures him quickly, trying to dredge up a smile herself and sinks down in her seat, refusing to meet Scott’s concerned eyes.

The teacher returns to the chalkboard again. Allison takes another look under her desk. No arrows, though she can swear she had one in her hand minutes ago and she was hafting a crudely made silver arrowhead to the shaft. Kate said they would make a better progress with silver. Maybe tonight she will be able to hit the target. She is looking forward to the dream.

…

“Allison, you alright?”

Allison jerks to a stop and blinks at Lydia who has grabbed her arm. Allison looks over her shoulder and yes, the shadows are still there, like a pair of silent sentinels. They are dressed like warriors and their faces are covered with grotesque masks. They look so incongruous in the corridor of the High School that they look ridiculous, laughable. But it is hardly a laughing matter.

The shadows have started stalking her on the twenty seventh day.

“Allison?” Lydia releases her arm to wave a hand in front of her face.

“Yeah?” Allison tries to focus on her friend who is looking at her with narrowed eyes.

“Ok, this needs to stop.” Lydia declares. Then she puts up a finger as Allison begins to open her mouth. “We are having a girls’ night at my place and I am inviting Kira too. You are obviously not ok and you are going to tell us what is wrong with you.”

“What are you talking about?” Allison tries to ignore the silent sentinels standing just behind Lydia. They are looking like they are waiting for some sort of signal from her. “I am fine.”

“Honey,” Lydia pats her arm. “Whatever you are, fine is not the word I would use to describe you right now.”

“I am ok. I swear.” Allison tries her best to sound earnest. “Just a little tired. The AP classes are really getting to me.”

Lydia cocks her head. “You are struggling with AP classes? You expect me to believe it?”

“Well the calculus is –”

“Stop trying to bullshit your way out of this.” Lydia says sharply. Then her eyes softened. “Why are trying to keep us at arm’s length? Something is obviously bothering you. Whatever it is, we will deal with it together.”

Except for her friends have all stepped into the light and she is unwilling to drag them into the shadows along with her.

“Lydia, just give me a few days.” She brings the steel in her voice that she knows will stop her from grilling her further. “It is just some personal issues and I am dealing with it. Let me handle it in my own way.”

Lydia observes her critically.

“And you promise to be your bright and cheerful self soon?” She asks.

She is _never_ going to be her bright and cheerful self again other than ironically. She has contemplated killing people. She has given it some thought and has made meticulous plans. She has taken pleasure in hurting people. She has been an accomplice to not one but two psychopaths.

“Sure.” She answers, flashing Lydia her most genuine smile. “I promise.”

Lydia eyes her some more. She is astute. Allison knows that she probably sees right through her, but she will also give her the benefit of doubt, deferring to her judgment. Lydia can be surprisingly sensitive at times.

“Fine.” She grumbles. “But the girls’ night in is still on.”

“Sounds good to me.”

 _You hate to be ambushed like this_ – her voices whisper into her ears. _You hate her for making you do it_ – they say.

Allison ignores the voices and the shadows. They follow her to Lydia’s place. They stand guard at the door. They are clamouring for her attention when Kira joins them.

They want her to start with Kira.

It all plays out in her mind. Her dagger plunged to the hilt into Kira’s throat as her lifeless eyes stare at the ceiling. Lydia lying with her head resting on Kira’s belly, her throat slashed with a single deep cut, dyeing her blue dress crimson and finally, Lydia’s mother lying in the pool of her own blood in the kitchen. Allison cocks her head to one side and wipes the blood from the dagger with a kitchen towel. Then she cleans her hand in the sink methodically. God it stinks of blood! Allison looks down at her own dress and grimaces in irritation. She is splattered with blood all over. She is looking like a demented version of Dexter Morgan.

And she is fucking hungry.

She steps over the lifeless body of Mrs. Martin to reach the state of the art refrigerator. She fixes herself a simple sandwich humming under her breath and devours the thing leaning against the kitchen counter. 

She takes a shower then, scrubbing her skin furiously, cleaning the dried crusts of blood from the nail beds. She steps off the shower only when the hot water runs out. She doesn’t bother with a dress but just wraps the huge fluffy towel securely around her.

Then she calls for help.

“Allison?”

“Hey Isaac,” she smiles into the phone. “So, I was thinking about that date you keep on not asking me about.”

There is a guilty silence on the other end.

“Allison,” comes the pained reply after a while. “Is this a joke? Because if it is, it’s really not cool of you. I kind of…have feelings for you.”

“I know.” Allison nods, though Isaac cannot see her. “And no, this is not a joke.”

“Ok.” Isaac sounds so hopeful. Allison smiles again.

“I am at Lydia’s place. Come over. I need your help with something. Don’t worry, there is nobody here.” Allison assures quickly. “At least nobody who can bother us. We can have that date right now.”

“I knew it was a joke.” Isaac mutters under his breath.

“What do you mean?” Allison frowns. “I am pretty serious.”

“First of all, you are not at Lydia’s.”

"What are you talking about?"

“You are in your own apartment. In fact I can pinpoint your exact location inside your apartment and can tell you that you are standing in the kitchen.”

Allison looks around wildly.

“How do you…how can you be so sure?”

Isaac sighs. “Because I can hear your heartbeat Allison.”

“What?”

“Scott wanted me to keep an eye on you. Discreetly. After you cancelled on Lydia tonight without giving any reason.”

Allison’s knees buckle and she sits down on the floor.

“Allison.” Isaac calls gently. “Should I…should I come inside? Do you want to talk about it?”

God, the boy is a fucking angel. She has been trying to manipulate him into helping her cleaning up deadbodies and he is sounding concerned about her.

And speaking of deadbodies…

“It is fine Isaac. I just…it was a bad dream.” Allison tries desperately to keep the tremor out of her voice. “Please go home. I will be ok.”

“Alright.” Isaac says and Allison hears the lie in it. She knows Isaac won’t go home until morning, but she doesn’t call him on it. “If you are sure you will be ok.”

“I am.” Allison says. “I will be.” She amends.

“Just tell me one thing.”

“Yeah.”

“Is Lydia –” Allison’s voice breaks. She clears her throat. “Are Lydia and Kira ok?”

“Yeah.” Isaac sounds like he is frowning. “Do you want me to call them to make sure?”

“Please do.” Allison grabs the phone tighter. She doesn’t know whatever she has done to deserve a friend like him. “And Isaac…please ask about Mrs. Martin too.”

“Ok.” Isaac replies and ends the call.

Allison feels sick and by the time Isaac calls back she has thrown up her dinner all over the kitchen floor.

“They are ok. Everybody is ok. I called Scott and Stiles also, just to make sure.”

Allison squeezes her eyes shut.

“Thanks Isaac.”

“Anytime.” Isaac says easily.

“See you at school tomorrow.” Allison doesn’t want to hang up just yet. The human contact helps.

“Um…actually, I won’t be there at school tomorrow. Visa interview.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Isaac sounds uncomfortable. “I think you knew about my moving to London to live with Jackson? We have been discussing it non-stop for the last few days whenever we sit together at cafeteria? We all have argued over it.”

“Jackson?” Allison says dumbly.

“Yeah.” Isaac sounds more and more uneasy. “Since Jackson’s parents adopted me legally and all…” he trails off. “You remember that right?”

Allison doesn’t.

“Of course.” She scoffs. “You just caught me off guard for I didn’t realize it would be so soon.”

“I know.” Isaac says softly and Allison has the feeling he _does_ know, but he keeps up the charade nonetheless. “Scott is so against it. But I really cannot ask Melissa to…you know, I love her. But I will be a burden to her. She already works so hard to make the ends meet. I know she will treat me the exact same as her son, but that is not fair on her or on Scott.”

Allison hums. It is getting difficult to form words the way her teeth have begun to chatter. She is cold right up to the marrow of her bones.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come over?” Isaac asks again.

“No.” She says quickly. “Go home Isaac. Good luck with the interview.”

Allison doesn’t wait for the answer. She disconnects the call and goes to bed, curling into a ball. The images of Lydia, Kira and Mrs. Martin or of their lifeless bodies flash through her mind. For the first time it occurs to her that she may be a danger to her friends, even to her father, because she may be losing her mind.

God she needs help, but then she may be beyond it already.


	4. 'I've been denying this feeling of hopelessness in me...'

The arms around her waist are strong and warm. Someone is trying to haul her upward even as the rock tied securely around her left ankle is pulling her down. A few more moments and then there will be oblivion. The hand is gone and Allison nearly whimpers at the loss of warmth, but no sound comes out of her mouth, only bubbles. Then the weight around her ankle is suddenly gone.

She doesn’t remember when she breaks the surface, but her teeth chatter loudly as she is tugged out of the lake. The hands are on her again urging her lungs to cough out the water. She flips and vomits into the dirt, coughing violently. The hands are cupped around the nape of her neck, the small of her back, weighty, comforting.

Finally she is done and she sits back on her haunches.

“Jesus.” Derek Hale also sits back, scrubbing his face with both hands. Then he opens his eyes and looks at her, scrutinising her shivering form in the dark. “Why are you so cold?”

That is Derek for you. He doesn’t question what she has been doing here in the middle of the night. He doesn’t rant about her very obvious attempt at drowning herself in a lake and how he has probably almost died trying to save her given how pale and breathless he looks even in the scant light. He doesn’t berate her for being a coward or offer her any platitude.

He just asks her why she is hypothermic when the lake water couldn’t have been less than fifty degrees and she hasn’t been into the water for more than fifteen minutes.

Allison tries to stand up on wobbly legs. Derek watches her, still sitting on the dirt, his hands resting on his knees. Allison’s eyes dart to the ever-present shadows. There are five of them today, but they are keeping their distance. Derek follows her gaze and looks behind him, puzzled.

“I...I w-want to –”

Allison’s knees give away under her and Derek is there in an instant, catching her and immediately some of the darkness starts fading away.

This shouldn’t happen.

Allison tries to speak, but her lips won’t co-operate and so she places them against Derek’s shoulder. It seems only natural for he is warm and alive and it feels good. She feels almost human for a moment there. But then the dark spots start to dance around her vision and her eyes start rolling back in her head.

“Hey...hey...” She can feel Derek patting her face softly and she wants to squat the hand away. She shouldn’t be this close to Derek Hale. This is not right. He shouldn’t be the one taking care of her. It is Scott’s job or Isaac's. Where the hell is Isaac anyway.

And then she remembers.

Scott is on a date with the new girl and Isaac is far away, in London. But Derek cannot be the substitute for Scott or Isaac or Lydia. Derek is nothing like that but a constantly looming and unwelcome presence.

She hates him or at best barely tolerates the insufferable man and he has no right to coddle her. Well, Derek apparently hasn’t got the memo for when he isn’t able to elicit a response from her, he just gathers her up in his arms.

She wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, freezing, even though she is under a blanket, a very comfortable one made of the finest wool, but the cold is bone deep and she shivers and shivers. It just won't stop.

“You are blue around your lips.”

Allison looks up sharply to see Derek hovering over her looking worried.

Huh?

“I should have taken you to the hospital.” Derek huffs out a frustrated sigh.

“N...n...no  hos...pital” Allison stammers out haltingly. She cannot imagine how her father will react to her trying to drown herself in a lake.

“I could have called Melissa at least. Or Lydia.” Then he shrugs, helpless. “But my phone is...it was in my pocket. I forgot to take it out.”

 _Before jumping in after you_ , Derek in all probability politely refrains from saying, but Allison hears it anyway.

“'s fine.” It is actually a blessing. Derek would no doubt have already given her a call and Melissa would tell her dad and she cannot have that. Lydia will definitely tell her dad and will probably kidnap her and keep her at her room and never let her go. She has enough to deal with as it is, what with the power of predicting death and all, without the added burden of Allison losing her mind.

She shivers again and it is getting worse.

“Ok." Derek nods after regarding her silently for a few moments. "I won't, but you need to take off your clothes.” Derek says and before she can answer, leaves her field of vision for a few moments and Allison is weirdly anxious until he comes back with a shirt and sweatpants, evidently belonging to Derek.

“I am leaving these here. I will be waiting outside, ok?” He stares down at her. “Put these on.”

He eyes her again, as if looking for some invisible injury he has missed before disappearing again.

Terror clutches her heart again the moment Derek leaves the room closing the door softly behind him. Terror that has driven her from her home, terror that has chased her through the forest as she has ran barefoot and finally it has caught up with her, the sheer hopelessness of it all. She doesn't remember tying the rock around her ankle, but she remembers plunging into the lake. She remembers the shadows standing on the bank, watching her as she has sunk down.

With shaky hands she throws the blanket off her and tries to climb off the bed. The moment her bare feet touch the hardwood floor, she starts shivering again. She wraps her hands around her torso and just holds herself together for she is going to pieces here. She doesn’t know she is sobbing until Derek yanks the door open and is crouched down in front of her.

“Where does it hurt?” His hands hover over her and there is a cold fury in his eyes which Allison knows is not for her. She knows Derek enough to know it is probably because he is feeling so useless now.

Allison tries to breathe through her nose and form a coherent sentence.

“D...d...don’t...”

Derek gets her alright.

He just spins on his heels and says, “I am not leaving. I am right here. Just put on some dry clothes.”

There is that gentleman again. The one that was raised right by his mother. The one who holds the passenger door open for a girl, reminding her of old school chivalry. Allison’s unwinds her hand but they are shaking uncontrollably. She tries to unbutton her shirt, but she can’t.

She makes an angry sound that was more like a whine.

“Need help?” Derek asks and he is fucking gentle without a hint of irony or amusement. There is actual, genuine concern.

Allison stays silent. She is mortified, but the clothes need to come off or she is going to die of exposure and that is for sure.

Derek turns round and ducks his head to look into her eyes.

“The clothes need to come off, ok?” He says and his voice borders on stern. “I need to...ok?"

Allison nods numbly without being able to look him in the eye.

“Hey, hey,” Derek nudges under her chin gently until she looks up. “I would have taken you to Melissa or Scott, somebody you would have been more comfortable with but you smell like...” his nostrils flare, frustrated. “Your blood is smelling like it is freezing in your veins and I don’t want to waste any time.”

Allison nods again.

“Ok...ok....” Derek seems to assure himself rather than her and starts with her shirt.

“I am so sorry for this.” He mumbles and the apology is apparent in his eyes. “I wish it was Scott who found you or even the idiot Stiles.”

Unlike his voice his fingers are not unsure. They are clinical and precise, barely touching her at all as he peels her shirt off her numb arms.

“Can you stand?”

Allison tries and wobbles, but then there are those warm hands again, wrapped around her, a broad palm splayed against the small of her back. The places Derek is touching her, instant warmth is blooming under her skin like magic.

Derek’s body is flushed against hers and his breath is ghosting just on top of her head and even that is so warm and so very comforting. Allison feels life stirring in her fingers and she bunches up Derek’s t-shirt without thinking.

Derek’s fingers are undoing the button of her jeans, pulling down the zipper and coaxing the wet material clinging to her skin to slide down her legs and he is managing it all with one hand. Derek gently lowers her on the bed again and peels off the jeans off her feet and straightens up. Her head droops on Derek’s belly and her arms go around his middle on their own accord. Derek goes rigid for all about half a second before his hands come down to cup her head, thumbs rubbing the sides of her head in soothing circles.

Derek Hale is undressing her, petting her hair like she is something precious. Unlike how it sounds like, it doesn’t feel sexual in spite of the comfort and the heady warmth. It is so freaking nice though Allison is sure she would be purring by now if she were a cat. Derek’s body feels nice. It is nice to be pressed against him and to be taken care of like a child.

She is still shivering, but it has subsided. Her bare skin is breaking into goosebumps, but at least she is probably not freezing to death anymore.

“Allison.”

Her eyes fluttered open at the hesitancy of his voice.

“The underwear...too.”

She nods again, resting her head against Derek’s abs. She has taken health classes and then there has been those lessons on survival by her father. She knows almost all there is to know about hypothermia. She knows getting rid of all items of wet clothing is the first thumb rule. She is surprised though that Derek knows it. She is not complaining though. How can she when she feels cozy and safe and the feeling wraps up around her bones like a warm promise. It is like tasting sunshine after sleeping in a cold, dark cave for days.

Again Derek somehow manages to unclasp her bra, reaching behind her with one hand and stepping away, eyes averted, but still keeping a hand on her shoulder until she is firmly tucked into the bed. He seems to instinctively realise contact helps.

Allison curls into a ball under the blanket for the cold has come back with a vengeance as soon as Derek has removes his hand.

“Well I think you can do with more blankets.” Derek frowns down at her. “I will throw your clothes in the drier.”

He escapes the room like it was on fire and Allison doesn’t blame him. It was not remotely erotic because Derek undressed her like she were his sister. She tastes the bitterness in her mouth though doesn’t quite dare to analyse the reason.

She tries to subdue the shivering still going through her frame from time to time.

The figures hover around her bed.

Derek barges into the room the second time almost half wolfed out and Allison realises she is screaming her head off. thrashing wildly in the bed in an effort to get away. He is onto her in a flash, pinning down her hands by her side, his weight partially resting on top of her, calling her name over and over again until there is a flicker of recognition in her eyes.

Tears are streaming down freely from her eyes by now.

“God...your skin feel like ice.” Derek says, forehead crunched in worry.

“Stay.” She says brokenly. “Please.”

For with Derek the sense of calmness has returned and the sense of safety and it is better than the warmest blanket in the world. The shadows have fallen back into the corner.

“Are you sure?” Derek asks. “I will stay in the room if you want. I can sleep on the couch over there.” He climbs down from the bed and takes a step back. The shadows press near immediately.

“No...please.” Allison chokes back a sob. “I can’t...” her face crumples again.

“Ok.” Derek says, his face registering alarm. She can see he is biting back a thousand questions for this is not natural. She shouldn’t be hypothermic still and the way her eyes are darting all around the room and the way she must be stinking of stark fear, all these point out to how unnatural the entire situation is.

Still Derek doesn’t ask any question, but he doesn’t switch off the light either. Allison’s throat almost closes up with overwhelming gratitude. Then Derek is gingerly climbing back into the bed and lying down with his back towards Allison. He probably doesn’t need the blanket. Werewolves!

She stares at the triskelion on his bare back for a few seconds and then scoots closer, throwing the blanket over him to cover them both.

Derek hisses as Allison’s ice cold skin comes into contact with his body and she stills, hesitating, wondering if she has overstepped some boundary. Derek grabs her by the wrist, pulls her closer and wraps her arm around him, tucking it securely under his own arm and does not let go of her wrist.

Allison plasters herself to Derek’s back and splays her fingers on his heart feeling the steady rhythm under her fingers and lets her feet tangle with Derek’s. Derek’s sweatpants are made of some expensive wool-knit material and they are soft and warm against her bare skin.

Somehow she doesn’t feel self conscious at all. It feels natural and good as her body is warmed up gradually and her mouth is pressed against the nape of his neck.

Derek lets out a soft sigh.

Allison’s eyes flutter close at the warmth rising deep in her chest that has nothing to do with the furnace of a body to which she is clinging to like an octopus.

She nuzzles Derek’s neck a bit and it is a bit silly but she feels Derek’s lips going up at the corner, thought there is no way she can know it.

She wants to do that many, many times.

Making Derek’s lips go up in the corner that is.

She never knew cuddling naked with Derek Hale would make her mushy and sentimental instead of going hormone crazy.

Surprisingly she falls asleep and doesn’t dream at all.

When she wakes up, it is clearly morning. Sun is filtering through the open window, white curtain fluttering in the wind.

Her clothes are neatly folded on the chair nearby and there is a flask of freshly made coffee and a plate with grilled cheese sandwiches on the bedside table.

Allison climbs down from the bed and it feels like yesterday didn’t take place at all for there is not even a single muscles cramp. She is not sure if it means Derek has drawn away her pain while she was sleeping.

In the light of day when her head is completely cleared, she wonders why it felt so natural and so not-awkward.

She dresses quickly, chases down the sandwiches with the coffee and heads downstairs. As she suspect, there is no sign of Derek at all.

She sighs and slips off the loft feeling a bit guilty not locking up behind her, but Derek would have to deal since he has left.


	5. 'And in the endless sky we are but one...we are alive'

“Derek is here.” Scott says. Oh well, being an alpha comes with its perks. Scott’s werewolf senses has never been sharper and he has never been more attuned with his surroundings.

“Where?” Stiles spins around comically, almost hitting Scott on the nose.

Allison and Lydia have stopped walking also, or at least Allison has. Lydia turns an inquisitive glance towards her. Allison motions with her hand to go on and falls back to talk to the two boys hovering by their lockers.

"Scott?" She asks.

“Shh...let me listen in.” Scott cocks his head in a typical canine fashion.

Allison and Stiles exchange glances.

“I thought he was over his stalkerish tendency.”

“Who, Derek?” Scott scoffs. “Only the day before yesterday he was lurking in my room. Almost gave me a heart-attack. It was even worse for Kira was with me. I don’t know how weird it must seem to her.”

“You didn’t hear his heartbeat?” Stiles asks.

“I was distracted, ok?” Scott shuffles.

“Uh-oh,” Stiles wiggles his eyebrows. “He interfered with your snuggle time with you honey-bunny?”

Scott shoots him a death glare and then looks at Allison apologetically who smiles back at him encouragingly. Really, he should get his head out of his ass and be open about his relationship with Kira instead of tiptoeing around her.

“What was he doing there?” She asks, to distract him mostly.

“Well, he wanted to know if I was suffering from any after-effect from the surrogate sacrifice thing.”

Allison can only hope her sharp intake of breath will be misconstrued as surprise.

“And he couldn’t call you or track you down at your workplace or grocery shop in order to do that?” Stiles’ eyebrows rise to the hairline.

“I told him that and he said he has lost his phone and he never had time to write down our numbers anywhere.”

“Right.” Stiles says dubiously even as Allison tries to calm her heartbeat down.

“So what is he doing here now?” Stiles asks.

“Apparently talking to Ms. Morrell. Asking her if she can recommend somebody good at London.” Scott sighs. “For Isaac.”

“What?” Both Stiles and Allison blurt out.

“I didn’t know he was...”

“Undergoing therapy. Yes.” Scott replies evenly. “I found out by accident. It was not something he would want to advertise.”

Stiles nods, like he understands and is in complete agreement. Allison on the other hand starts wondering what else she didn’t know about her friends.

“It seems the counsellor at Isaac’s new school shares his father’s first name.”

“The person who used to lock him into a freezer and abused him everyday?” Allison is aghast. It must have not been easy for Isaac to be caught so off guard. She just hopes it didn't result into actual flashbacks.

“Oh, wow.” Stiles mouths. “That should put a damper on the entire counselling session.”

“Ms. Morrell was good with Isaac. It seems.” Scott is still eavesdropping on the conversation. “He was coping...getting better. So Derek thinks he will be better off if he resumes the session with somebody Mrs. Morrell can personally recommend and transfer the case history too so that Isaac doesn’t need to start the entire thing from scratch.”

The look of surprise on both Scott and Stiles’ face twists something funny inside Allison. Did they not believe Derek to be capable of any act of kindness at all?

“He is leaving now.” Scott relays. “Ms. Morrell has given him a phone number.”

“What are we waiting for?” Stiles grabs Scott’s arm. “Let us go and meet him.”

“Why?” Scott asks, clearly puzzled, though he lets Stiles drag him and Allison trails behind them, a tad uncertain.

“Because I missed the crazy fucker, why else?” Stiles retorts.

They spot him at the parking lot as he is sliding into his Camaro. Ok, so the thing still exists, Allison notes. The Toyota has been replaced with the old bad-boy car again. She wonders if it is because the Toyota must reek of Erica, Boyd and Isaac, the painful reminder of the people gone from his life.

“What are you doing here?” Derek gets out of the driver seat and scowls at the trio.

“Man,” Stiles laughs. “At least no one will accuse you of being original.”

“It is his favourite question.” Allison agrees.

“I think he means existentially.” Stiles spreads his hands. “It can be the title of a philosophical dissertation.”

“We go to school here.” Scott answers Derek more simply. “I overheard your conversation with Ms. Morrell. I am sorry.”

Derek’s face is even more unreadable with his eyes covered with a pair of dark aviators. But it seems like he is studying them critically. Allison is trying not to think back on the night for it will be too much for her. Too many emotions that she cannot name, too many questions, too many loose-ends and she is still too raw from the sheer exhaustion of trying to analyse and re-analyse the entire thing in her head.

“Never mention it to him.” Derek’s lips are pressed tight. “He doesn’t like it.”

Well, it seems throwing around sentences like a command doesn’t come with alpha territory with Derek. Either he is frighteningly good at it or it may be a natural talent, but when he speaks, he sort of expects to be automatically obeyed.

“We are not total assholes.” Stiles huffs. “We are a little bit, but not that much. Now give me your new phone.”

“Why?” Derek frowns.

“So that I can set up a back-up.” The _you dumbass_ remains unspoken, but hovers in the air nonetheless.

When Derek doesn’t move immediately to comply, Stiles rolls his eyes.

“So that the next time you destroy your phone with your wolfy powers, you will still be able to retrieve all your contacts.”

“Ok.” Derek frowns again, harder this time and hands over a sleek-looking, high-end phone, like he is trying really hard not to ask outright what is his angle.

“HTC.” Stiles sighs. “Of course.” He shakes his head and gets busy with it.

“We really thought you wouldn’t come back this time.” Scott says honestly.

“This is home.” Derek replies.

“Yeah, of course man.” Scott nods vigorously. “I mean what with...I thought you would be...with my being...you know...”

“It is ok Scott.” Derek’s lips twitch into a small smile. “You can say it aloud. You are the alpha now and I am an omega. In your territory.”

“No.” Scott looks horrified. “I am not that kind of alpha. I don’t want to be. And you are not an omega.”

“I don’t have a pack now. I don’t have anybody.”

“You have us.” Scott cringes visibly. Allison knows it is not because he didn’t want to say it, but because how Derek can take it in a completely wrong way. For if nothing Derek is proud. He didn’t let go of it even when he was stripped bare – of his family, of home, of anybody to call friends. He has his dignity. There was a time that was the only thing he lived on.

Derek didn’t seem offended. Though it is hard to tell when they cannot see his eyes behind the dark glasses.

“Still an omega.” He breathes out at last, almost too soft for Allison to hear, but she hears it anyway for all her attention is riveted on Derek.

And it echoes in her mind long afterwards. Long after Derek’s black car disappears in a puff of smoke. After the school is over. After the evening drags on and the night doesn’t bring any sleep. After hours of staying wide awake – the loneliness dripping from the three words. Cutting her deep and cutting her close.

She almost gets out of her bed once, but she restrains herself.

She tries to remind herself how Derek may not be evil, but he is not exactly an angel either. He is way too mysterious, way to wild, unpredictable. And she cannot, just cannot use him as her drugs.

She cannot get addicted to the promise of warmth in the eyes that up close look bluer and greener at the same time.

Allison punches her pillow and tries to go to sleep again.

She fails.

...

Even though Allison sleeps less and less these days, when she does, they are mostly dreamless. The shadows have stopped chasing her. She doesn’t know if it is the near-death experience or it is Derek’s werewolf mojo, but she is so very thankful for it that she doesn’t question it anymore.

The voices are still there though, a particularly stubborn one almost drowning the others. And there is the fact that when she does dream, they turn into nightmares. She wakes up with her mouth open in silent screams. She knows she is stronger than this. She fights down the childish urge to pad down the hall to his father’s room and fall asleep there, in the bed that still smells of him, though he is away in business.

He is mostly away and Isaac is still gone.

Lydia and Kira have become fast friends. She has no reason to complain for Lydia introduces her to everybody as her best friend and Kira openly admires her. Scott is always silently attentive and Stiles is always trying to cheer her up, lighten up her mood.

She doesn’t know how they have forgiven her so easily. How can Isaac forgive her so easily. She knew Gerard had kidnapped Erica and Boyd and tortured them at their basement. She had helped Gerard kidnap them. She had learnt later that Stiles was beat up by the piece of shit that is his grandfather too and to think she had actually been manipulated into helping him.

She doesn’t know how Derek can forgive her. She had tried to capture him, had seen him being tortured and haven’t bothered to question if it was necessary. She had tried to kill him.

She doesn’t understand how Derek can forgive her family for what they did to him. After making him packless, orphan, they tried to take away his dignity by making him a fugitive, by making him live in constant fear in his own home, by making him distrust his own shadow by continuous threat so much so that a simple act of pumping gas into his car could turn out of be a life and death situation (Allison had overheard the conversation between his father and one of the hunters who had been with him that day at the gas station when they broke Derek’s car window, apparently without any provocation).

She doesn’t understand why Derek didn’t send a passive aggressive message back to the Argents through Allison. It would have been so easy to waylay her anytime.

Instead he gave her a lift home.

He glowers at her, brushes off her peace offering, doesn’t trust her when she wants to help, doesn’t trust her around his sister, doesn’t invite her inside his house like she is a goddamn vampire.

And then he goes ahead and saves her.

Stupid, frustrating, leather-wearing, sports car driving werewolf with a hero complex!

Allison shakes her head and turns to Lydia and Kira who have been trying to get her attention for the past few minutes.

Life doesn’t wait for her to catch up with. It ebbs and flows around her, though she feels stagnant. She feels she is not moving forward when everybody around her is and it terrifies her. She feels aloof from everything as her friends bicker and banter back and forth around her. Like she is a silent spectator of her own life.

Scott throws a worrying glance towards her, but she cracks a joke at the right moment and his forehead smoothens.

Scott has always been too gullible.

...

Some don't understand the concept of silence being more comfortable than all the sweet nothings in the world.

When you have tried to or at least toyed with the idea of killing or maiming half of the people who could have been your friends, silence is all you have left.

For words die down, eventually and everything recedes.

Silence is the only thing that is left behind.

You can finally breathe when no one is watching you anymore, nor having anyone to watch over.

Some people just don’t get it.

Apparently Derek does.

They have been sitting on the surprisingly intact porch steps of Derek’s old home for the last couple of hours in complete silence. Allison has always been drawn to this area of the Preserve. She has been jogging through the forest and her feet have taken her here, without a conscious decision on her part. Derek has sauntered around the house and startled her, but hasn’t said a word.

He has dropped down to sit beside her instead. Well, not beside, but a step above her, but one of his knees is still touching her arm. Allison is sure she has seen Derek go to a great length to avoid touches, even casual ones, like it will somehow sully him.

If she is surprised, she doesn’t show it, but just stares ahead. Derek’s knee brushing against her arm somehow grounds her to the present.

She can feel the texture of the jeans, can tell it is of very good quality, probably worth twice her monthly allowance.

She can feel it and the natural heat of Derek’s skin through the piece of clothing permeates her being.

She feels it and has this knowledge secured in the dark recesses of her mind. Ergo, she exists. Right here, right now. Maybe, just maybe, She leans into the touch a little. She will deny it if asked.

Derek doesn’t move, doesn’t talk. Doesn’t offer hot chocolate (why does she think of hot chocolate of all things?) for of course Derek cannot possibly make hot chocolate here in a house that will fall down any day on his head. Derek doesn’t have a kitchen or a gas connection or indoor plumbing in here.

There are only memories here.

And a huge hole on the floor where Peter’s corpse used to be.

Allison shudders involuntarily and tries not to think of anything.

It is so quiet that the suspiciously familiar voice in her head has finally stopped whispering into her ears.

Allison sighs and gets up.

Derek doesn’t say anything.

Allison doesn’t look back.

...

“What is an omega?”

“A lone wolf. One who doesn’t belong to a pack.”

“I know that.”

“So why are you asking?”

“What is an omega?”

Derek turns to look at her. Allison has a cup of tea nestled close to her chest that Derek has handed her wordlessly. She is feeling particularly cold today and she is huddled at one end of Derek’s long blue, velvet sofa, while Derek is on the other end. Reading. Allison has tried to get a look at the title. It is Spanish.

“An omega is strong.” Derek starts and his voice is soft, gentle. Matching with the way he is looking at her. “For they have to rely more on themselves. There is nobody to tend to them if they are injured, none to lick their wounds, no one to provide food. The world is harsh and full of enemies. The world tends to gang up on the alone and the weak. So an omega needs to be stronger than everybody. An omega needs to realise they are nobody’s prey and quit acting like a prey. They are still primarily a predator. So they are capable of surviving. The battles may be brutal, and the relief only temporary and it may seem it is easier to give up, but they must try.”

That is the most Allison has ever heard Derek say at one go.

“Why?” She whispers.

“Just because.” Derek smiles at her.

Allison blinks. The smile is still there. It is tiny, just quivering on the edge of his lips, and it doesn’t even touch his eyes for his eyes are still sad. Allison startles. How has she never realised how sad Derek’s eyes are. Like he is in a world of pain that mortal humans know nothing of and that he is hiding it away. Not willing to share it with anybody. He is not asking for pity, or soft words. He is in fact so bent on not letting people pity him that he goes an extra mile to be an utter asshole and not even the loveable kind. 

“Just because?” Allison asks again, drawn by the force of Derek’s eyes. Half-lulled to sleep by his voice.

“When you need a reason to live, you are in serious trouble.” Derek says solemnly. “You should just be. The trees or the animals don’t question their existence. They revel in their being, never stopping to ask why.”

“But it should be different with humans.”

“Maybe,” Derek conceded. “It is in our DNA to make everything more complicated than it actually is.”

“So even if it is hopeless...”

“It is always hopeless.” Derek says. “Death is at the end of it all. It is always going to be hopeless. For what is the point even?”

“What is the point?” Allison asks stupidly.

“The omega survives.” Derek’s eyes flash with something nameless. Something wild and primal. Allison shivers.

“Scott said that you once said the omegas are the weakest.”

Derek looks at her like she is missing the point altogether.

“Am I an omega?” She whispers.

Derek stares at her, though he doesn’t seem to be startled by the question. He looks at her like he expected the question all along.

“You have your friends.” He says slowly, cautiously. Allison cannot help but notice how he doesn't deny it, but just dodges the question expertly.

“So have you.”

Derek looks down at his hands and then looks at a place somewhere in the middle of the loft. It is an odd place to stare at, unless...Allison lets out an audible gasp.

“You miss Boyd.” She takes a guess.

Derek doesn't flinch, but Allison does, wanting to take back her words immediately after.

“I miss them all.” Derek says, quietly, still staring off into space.

“Can I do anything?” Allison blurts out before she knows what she is saying. She claps a hand over her mouth, but Derek’s head has already snapped to her. He is regarding her silently again. This time the air seems fragile and broken. The skin around Derek’s eyes are drawn tight and his face has this look of one that has forgotten what a laughter sounds like.

Allison wants to wipe that haunted look off his face.

Derek replies her when she already has one foot out of the loft and his voice makes her freeze midway.

“Stay alive.” He says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any comments will be much appreciated :)


	6. 'You are my river running high'

It is like when you learn a new word, suddenly it starts popping up everywhere.

Allison seems to run into Derek at odd places. Odd because it is laughably mundane – like the frozen meat section of the local super-market, brows pinched in concentration as Allison ducks behind the freezer, in his dark car peeling out of the pumping station, walking down the stairs of the local bank in a formal green button-down (Allison could swear at least five people just stopped in their tracks and one unfortunate cyclist ran straight into the lamp-post staring at him)....the sheriff’s station!

The last one made even weirder because her dad is with her this time. Or rather, she is accompanying her dad.

“Derek.” Mr. Argent’s greeting is less than cordial, but Allison knows better. She knows the subtle difference in tone that indicates...if not respect, at least an acknowledgement. Even more surprising is the use of the first name. Allison doesn’t really get it because Derek is not the alpha any more. He is practically an omega. There is no need for the barely-there deference.

“Chris.” Derek throws back coolly.

Allison has to bite down on her lip to stop from smiling at her dad’s taken aback expression.

“I guess you are here for the same reason.”

Derek glances over where Allison stands, right by the side of her father and then back to Mr. Argent.

“I guess.” He says, but he kind of makes it sound like a question.

It could have got awkward from there for Derek is a man of few words and her dad seems at a loss of them. But the sheriff sticks his head from his office and beckons them inside.

“So here was the first and here was the second attack.”

The sheriff jabs his fingers at two points on the map of Beacon Hills. The first one seems to be quite close to Lydia’s place, in the narrow arm of Beacon Hills Preserve that runs behind her house. Allison doesn’t point it out but surely both the sheriff and her dad realise it.

“Why didn’t you let us know about them before?” Mr. Argent frowns. “Especially the first one that happened on a full moon night.”

“We genuinely thought it was an animal attack that time.” The sheriff replies. “There has been a mountain lion spotting further north a few weeks back. And besides, I took Scott there just to be on the safer side and he could smell nothing supernatural on or near the deadbody.”

“So why now? It has already been a week. There is no way we can find a trail now even if there is any supernatural involved.”

“There was no reason to suspect otherwise, but I don’t know.” The sheriff shakes his head. “I kind of have a gut feeling it is more than that. I wanted to ask you if you have spotted anything unusual in the town lately.”

“No.” Mr. Argent shakes his head. “It would have been better if we could examine the spot.”

“Yeah. I am sorry. I just hope there is no third time.”

“What does Scott have to say this time?”

“I didn’t ask him.” The sheriff shakes his head. “Though I have a feeling Stiles and Scott have already checked it out. I don’t want them mixed up with this again.”

It is only then that Derek speaks up.

“Scott didn’t but I did.”

The three heads poring over the maps of Beacon Hills Preserve turn to look at him.

“Stiles called me the day before yesterday. He wanted Scott but he had a date.”

Derek’s eyes flick to Allison before hesitating over the word _date_.

Allison forces a smile if only to let Derek know he can say it aloud and that it will not break her. She knows Scott has finally started dating Kira in earnest and she is really happy for them. The pang in her chest every time she sees them together is more from nostalgia than anything else. Or so she makes herself believe.

“That boy will be the death of me.” The sheriff mutters under his breath.

“I am sorry.” Derek says and for a moment he looks genuinely contrite. If it is an act, Derek must be a hell of an actor. “I probably should have discouraged him.”

“No, actually I should thank you.” The sheriff waves Derek off. “At least you were there to protect him if something went wrong.”

Then he pauses and pins Derek with a look.

“You would have protected him, right?”

“Of course.” Derek seems offended that the sheriff can think otherwise.

“That is what I thought.” He chuckles ruefully. “If you refused, I am sure he would have gone on his own anyway and hurt himself somehow.”

“Did you find anything?” Mr. Argent brings the discussion back to the incidents of animal attacks.

“No werewolf, that is for sure.” Derek replies. “No supernatural trail at all. Scott was right.”

“But is it a co-incidence that one attack took place on a full moon night and the other one just the day before?”

“I said no supernatural, but it was not an animal attack either.”

“What?” The sheriff asks this time.

“There was no mountain lion there.”

“But we have paw prints and animal fur.”

“Did you test the fur sample?”

“No, but...with the paw prints and the way both the victims were killed, with a clean sweep of claws to the jugular.” Then the sheriff remembers something. “Also the way chunks of flesh are missing, seemingly fed upon by a wild animal.”

“There was no animal.” Derek insists. “Other than coyotes, of course, but they just fed off the corpse. They didn’t make the kill.”

“Paw prints can be planted.” Allison speaks up for the first time. “To make it look like an animal attack.”

“Yeah.” Mr. Argent agrees. “But without any hint of supernatural, even if it is a murder, we will be of little help.”

“So it seems we have a human killer at hand.” The sheriff scratches the back of his neck. “Derek did you find anything useful that could be a possible lead?”

Derek thinks for a moment.

“There was another human. Other than the victim. So it is not a group or a gang.”

“That is good. The other human is our perp then. Anything else?”

“There was no saliva in the bite-like wounds.”

“So it was staged.” The sheriff nods grimly. Then he seems to wake up from a trance.

“Sorry Chris, Allison, I called you guys for nothing.”

“Anytime sheriff.”

Allison hears Derek pausing at the doorway. She grips her father’s arm to stop him and goes back to listen.

“...lock on the scent. I can find them if they haven’t skipped town.”

“Derek,” the sheriff sighs tiredly. “I appreciate the offer, but I cannot risk a civilian’s life like that.”

“But sheriff you have no other...”

“No. If there is a killer involved and they know you have means to identify them, your life will be in danger.”

“I am willing to take that risk.”

“Well I am not.”

That seems to startle Derek into silence.

“I have written enough reports on the Hales of Beacon Hills dying horrifically and I sure as hell won’t stand by to see the last of them committing suicide.”

“I am not committing suicide.” It sounds like Derek is gritting his teeth.

The silence on the other end prolongs and Allison resists the urge to poke her head into the office and see their expression. She can almost imagine Derek and sheriff glaring at each other across the work desk, none willing to back down.

“Son...”

“Goodbye sheriff.” Derek’s tone is cold as he cuts the sheriff off and storms out of the office before Allison can get away from the door indicating she has been eavesdropping shamelessly.

He turns to Allison.

“Derek...”

“Not here.”

They get out of the building with his dad throwing puzzled glances between the two of them.

Derek doesn’t look back until he reaches his car.

“It is not you.”

That is the first words he says after turning to face them.

Allison’s feet feel like lead. Her mouth hangs open slightly.

The first attack took place on a full moon night. The day after she had a vivid dream of going on a murderous rampage and called Isaac to clean up the mess.

The second attack happened the same evening she tried to drown herself.

She couldn’t remember what she did on both the evenings. She tried, but drew a complete blank.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Chris Argent looks furious enough to pump Derek full of wolfsbane-laced bullets.

Derek just stares at her calmly, ignoring her father altogether.

“Allison, breathe.” He says.

Allison doesn’t even know she has been holding her breath until now. There is something not right here. She absolutely knows there is something going on. She is, she maybe...it is too much of a co-incidence. She must be involved somehow. She must be.

“Allison, look at me.”

The distance between them is a good five feet and her father has a tight grip on her left elbow while looking daggers at Derek over her head. Still, Allison feels the weight of Derek’s stare on her bent head.

She drags her eyes up from Derek’s boots and looks into his eyes.

They don’t flash crimson at her like she expects and then she remembers Derek’s eyes no longer flash crimson. It is just a startling shade of blue – the eyes of a murderer, the voice of her mother whispers in her ears. But right now, it is just Derek – with his normal human eyes, pale hazel in the strip of streetlight thrown across his stubbled face.

“Don’t think like that.” He shakes his head. “You are not capable of that.”

Allison wants to laugh. What does he know? He is just a kid, like Scott or Jackson or Stiles. Only a few years older. But he is as much lost and as much scared as them. What will he know what she is capable of. _She_ doesn’t know what she is capable of.

“What is he talking about?” Chris Argent asks into her ears without taking his eyes off Derek.

“You should be around for your daughter more.” Derek suddenly addresses her dad.

No, no, no, no, no....what the hell are you doing? Allison glares at Derek. Don’t you dare. No need to drag him into her mess. He has already lost so much, just let him have this illusion that his darling daughter is the same as before – the sweet and gentle child whom he rocked to sleep every night.

“Once somebody told me they take care of their own.” Derek doesn’t seem to have finished. He raises his chin challengingly at her dad and goes on. “I think it is time to act accordingly.”

Then something stranger happens. Chris Argent’s grip on Allison’s elbow loosens and he nods at Derek, imperceptibly. Derek nods back and with a last warning look at Allison he gets into his car and drives away.

Allison fully expects to be grilled on her way home. Instead her dad recounts haltingly his first encounter with Derek after he had come back to Beacon Hills in search of Laura. Allison doesn’t correct him saying she already knows about it. Her father doesn’t gloss over it or spare her any detail. He tells her how terrified and hopeless Derek looked and how in spite of it he never lost control on his wolf, not for the lack of trying on her dad’s part though. How he taunted him about his dead family, about his dead sister whom he had buried only days ago.

_Family....you don’t have left much of it nowadays._

That for a moment he has expected Derek to throw back the same words to him today, but Derek has always defied his expectation.

....

His dad is around more. He asks about school and her new friends.

He wants to take her shopping or to the ice-cream parlour.

Allison smiles and indulges him.

He never asks why Derek told her those things but sometimes Allison feels him looking at her surreptitiously, like he knows if she catches him looking, she will bolt or put up yet another wall around her. And he doesn’t want to lose her again.

Conversations are stilted and so they are painful. Talking with dad used to be easy. Like breathing. Now it seems like a chore.

Sometimes she wakes up screaming, if she is able to fall asleep by some miracle that is.

Her father comes bounding up the stairs and wakes her up and hugs her tight.

She is so weak. So pathetic. A wimp.

Allison takes her Chinese dagger and scrapes the tip of it against the blue vein of her left wrist. Contemplates just how much courage or cowardice it takes to cut through her own flesh, deep enough to bleed.

...

Derek opens the door, and predictably scowls. Allison fidgets.

Will this be the time that he finally snaps?

Maybe he will.

Maybe he will get tired of sharing out his home, his personal space, his solitude, his tea and his silence to a person he hardly knows.

Maybe he will find her neediness disgusting.

Is she really this needy? Clingy? And for what? For a bit of company? For understanding? For comfort? For the sheer physical warmth Derek’s person exudes, his cold exterior notwithstanding?

They stare at each other for one whole minute before Derek sighs and steps aside.

She takes up one end of the blue sofa and pulls up her legs so that she can hug her knees, her back against the armrest.

“Don’t you have homework?” Derek folds his arms across his chest.

Allison wants to laugh in his face. How can she concentrate on mundane stuff like school and homework when there is death, dancing around her, playing with her in her dreams, making her shiver. How can school matter when she is fighting against a darkness that is threatening to devour her entire existence. What does it matter anyway? She is already gone. There is a cold misery that is gripping her heart, making her indifferent to everything. She has begun to lose everything, she cannot taste food, she cannot enjoy a good movie...nothing ever makes sense anymore. She is –

Derek snaps his fingers right in front of her nose.

Allison blinks and looks up at him.

“What?” She snaps.

“I said, do you still have trouble sleeping?” Derek asks, his voice neutral as always, expression unreadable.

“Yeah.” Allison closes her eyes before opening them again. They burn.

Derek’s gaze sweeps over her features. Allison squirms under the intense scrutiny. She knows what he sees – the bags under the eyes, the sallow complexion, the way her collarbones have started jutting out as she is losing weight like she is on crack.

Derek watches her for a few seconds more before walking away. He climbs up the spiral staircase and disappears from her sight.

Allison sighs and rests her forehead on her knees. The loft is warm and the couch is comfortable. It is deathly quiet except for the sound of Derek’s soft footsteps as he moves across his bedroom upstairs. A bedroom she is familiar with. She shivers again and stops her mind from wandering off. Her eyes close involuntarily and her body relaxes by degrees. She feels inexplicably safe here. She doesn’t know why. She is tempted to stretch her legs and fall asleep, but what if the nightmares start again and what if she is unable to wake herself up this time. She will forever be trapped inside the misty forest with the threat of something terrifying looming just around the corner, never making a move, never showing itself, but just playing with her until her nerves fail and she dies of sheer terror.

“Does your father know you are here?”

Allison starts and glares at Derek who is standing right in front of her. As usual, she hasn’t even heard when he has come down and walked across the room. He is holding a pillow and a blanket.

“No,” Allison frowns, eyeing the objects suspiciously.

Derek puts the pillow down at one end of the couch. He straightens, looks undecided for a moment, then bends down and fluffs it.

“Text him that you are at Lydia’s.” He orders. “Then lie down and sleep.”

“I can’t.” Allison shakes her head, angry tears starting to form in her eyes. She doesn’t like to show weakness in front of a predator. All her instincts shy away from the very idea.

Derek heaves another put upon sigh and then he is manhandling her into a lying position and tucking her into the blanket. It is soft and it smells faintly of Derek. Allison hasn’t known Derek has a scent before this. But she sniffs the blanket and the warm smell of something wild, something free and something like sunshine on wood washes over her. She stares at him as he picks up her blanketed feet and plops down on the sofa, resting her feet into his lap. He has a dog-eared book in his hand. It is English this time. He opens it at the bookmark and settles down comfortably, one hand draped loosely on her legs.

“Sleep.” He says again, without looking at her. “I will watch over you.”

Allison turns to her side and digs the heels of her feet into Derek’s stomach. Even through the double layer of blanket and Derek’s Henley Allison can feel the superhuman heat which gradually warms up the soles of her feet and then it starts to crawl upwards, towards her heart.

Derek’s hand is a surprisingly gentle weight around her ankle above the blanket.

Allison sleeps and doesn’t dream.

...

It comes from the person she least expects to come to know about her secret.

She doesn’t exactly plan for it to happen, but it has sort of become a routine. Each time she ends up behind the steering wheel with a certain destination in mind or her feet invariably take her to one charred remains of a house while jogging through the preserve, she tells herself it is the last time. Or better still, Derek will refuse to open the door or to let her through or simply tell her to stay away from him.

Derek does none of the above.

They barely talk though.

They are basically enemies who have called a truce, but that doesn’t stop them from being enemies. What is there to talk about?

Anyways, the secret!

“You know you still have your friends.” Melissa tells her knowingly after greeting her and asking her how she is doing.

Allison has two bottles of shampoo in each hand, (not her usual brand, but sometimes the change is necessary) frowning at them, trying to decide if she should go for _silky soft_ or _long and lustrous_ and probably contemplating  what if the solutions for all her problems can come in convenient labels.

She stares at Melissa who looks back so kindly that something inside her aches.

“What?” She asks inelegantly.

“It is ok to ask for help.” Melissa says. “Especially when you have friends who care about you.”

Allison looks around her as if the friends will pop up right here in the middle of the supermarket on a slow Tuesday evening.

“I don’t...”

I don’t need help. I can take care of myself. I can take down my enemies without batting an eye. I can kill people or at least seriously consider it as an alternative. I have had information of a person being tortured in the basement of his own home, probably scarring his soul beyond repair, but has chosen to ignore it in favour of having an existential crisis. I have had information of people being tortured in the basement of my own home, but has chosen to ignore it because it suited my purpose.

I almost shot your son.

I am sorry.

I am so sorry.

She didn’t say any of these loud, but her facial expressions may be more transparent than she realised for Melissa is suddenly in front of her, gently prying away the stupid bottles of shampoo from her white-knuckled grip.

She found it hard to let go, but Melissa is patient. She puts them back on the display rack and hugs Allison who stiffens up immediately. It feels strange and alien. She suddenly remembers the last time she was touched with such gentleness and such protectiveness was when Derek –

Nope. She will not go there. That night was an anomaly and will stay like that.

If only she can bring her feet not to seek out the path leading to the Hale house time and again. If only she can control her wandering mind when she lies awake at night. Wondering about what will Derek do if she turns up uninvited to his loft. Again.

She realises belatedly that she is yet to return the hug and before she can correct her mistake Melissa is already drawing back. She doesn’t look the least bit offended. She looks at her with the same soft fondness in her eyes as before.

Allison doesn’t get it. She doesn’t know what to do with this all-round forgiveness. She wonders if all her friends and former friends and acquaintances have held a meeting behind her back and decided that Allison is to be forgiven, to be absolved of all crimes she has committed, for all the deadly thoughts that have crossed her mind, for all of her transgressions – that she is going to remain in everybody’s good graces even after everything.

Allison is sick of being forgiven.

“Are you ok Melissa?”

Melissa doesn’t bristle at her hard tone, at the fact that she has called her by her Christian name for the first time. She smiles at her instead.

“I am as ok as I can be. But I miss you.”

Allison startles.

“You breaking up with Scott doesn’t mean you cannot be friends with him. He hasn’t made you uncomfortable has he? Or do I need to kick his ass for something.”

“No.” Allison blurts out quickly. “No, Scott is perfect. He is a good friend. They all are.”

“But they don’t get you, not like Derek.”

A slap in the face would have come as a lesser shock.

“Wh- how...how do you...I mean...”

“Relax.” Melissa smiles again, squeezing her forearm. “I am not going to spill your secret, if it is a secret.”

“We are not having sex.” Allison feels her cheeks heat. She doesn’t know why among everything this is what comes out of her mouth.

Melissa actually laughs.

“Thank you for putting that worry in my head now. Not because Derek is not...well he is not the most well-adjusted of them all, but he is a decent enough guy. But because you may not be in the right state of mind and you may end up hurting him.”

There are so many things wrong with the sentence.

“I may end up hurting _him_?” Allison repeats stupidly. Is it an arch reference to the fact how she broke Scott’s heart by breaking up with him.

“Hon,” Melissa is serious again. “I am a mother. It is sort of an instinct to feel protective about my young ones, especially the ones who have risked their lives and limbs for my only son a number of times.”

Allison cannot fault her there. No matter how bad an alpha Derek was or how much he threatened Scott, there was never any doubt about his sincerity to save Scott from every possible harm.

“Yeah. Derek tends to do...that.” She nods.

“I mean you and Derek.”                   

God, no. She doesn’t know what she is talking about.

“But you said...”

“I don’t want any of you hurt. You least of all. What I meant was you have your friends, your family, your surrogate family if you let them in,” she smiles sadly, “but honey, Derek has nobody. He hardly has himself. Imagine what it will do to him when you don’t need him anymore and trust me you won’t for you are one of the strongest people I know.”

I don’t feel strong. Allison thinks, but she doesn’t say it.

“But how do you know?” Allison asks instead.

“Derek came to me to put together a first aid kit, specifically for deep cuts and bruises and medicines to counter fever, low blood pressure and hypothermia.” Melissa eyes her. “I tried to grill him, but you know how he is.”

Allison curses the werewolf nose. He must have smelt the blood on her. Her fingers twitch in a reflexive attempt to cover her wrists though she is wearing a long-sleeved jacket.

Melissa’s eyes flick to her hands. God, the woman is observant.

“I guess it was not for him.”

“And you immediately thought of me?”

“That and the fact that John saw your car parked in front of Derek’s apartment building not once, but twice.”

It stumps Allison. The fact that not only Melissa, but the sheriff knows about it too. She knows she is not doing anything wrong, or maybe she is. As Melissa has so kindly pointed out. Is she using Derek? Like Jennifer Blake did?

“I don’t mean to. I am sorry.”

“Oh honey,” Melissa looks like she is going to hug her again and Allison stiffens up minutely.

“You have nothing to apologise for. But you don’t need to hide from your friends.” She does reach out to squeeze her arm again. “Even the strongest need help sometimes. I just...” she sighs, “I am just concerned you have to seek this help from somebody whom you don’t even like in the first place. It is some sort of self-punishment and it is not...healthy. Like some part of you wants to get hurt.”

“Derek will never hurt me.”

The conviction in her voice startles her.

“No, no he won’t.” Melissa smiles, her eyes crinkling in the corners. “That boy has a protective streak a mile-wide. But _you_ expect to get hurt. That is why you chose him. It is fair on neither of you.”

Allison has forgotten Melissa McCall is a different brand of shrewdness and her insight into human psychology probably surpasses Lydia even.

“Maybe I genuinely like him.” Allison reasons though her words ring false in her own ears. “As a friend,” she adds hastily.

She doesn’t like Derek. She likes what Derek’s presence does to her. She likes the physical comfort and the fact that Derek chases away the ghostly shadows that accompany her everywhere.

Still she ploughs on bravely.

“Maybe I go to him because nowadays he is the only person I can talk to or not talk to and that he doesn’t mind. Either the talk or the silence.”

“Then I am happy.” Melissa keeps up her end of the pretence. “You have found somebody to talk to and God knows Derek needs a friend and Scott is not exactly...friendly with him.”

What is it in Derek that he has so easily won over the parents of the children who distrust him so deeply? Even her dad doesn’t seem mad at him any more.

Allison nods.

“Goodbye sweetheart. Please don’t be a stranger.” Melissa stands on her tiptoe and drops a kiss on her forehead. Her sweet perfume lingers in her nose long after she is gone.

Mom scent. It is more floral than her mother, and more homely.

Still...mom scent.

Something she will never smell anymore without feeling a deep crater of loss inside her.

And the man responsible for it lives and thrives.

The voices inside her head suddenly reaches a crescendo.

...

The third body is discovered in the industrial part of the town, a stone’s throw away from Derek’s loft.


	7. 'Look into my eyes...it's where my demons hide'

Allison draws her fist back and hammers, right into his face. Derek looks stunned, but instead of releasing her, his fingers tighten around her arms. It has been close to six hours and this is her fourth (unsuccessful) attempt to escape. She waits until she thinks he is finally too immersed in cooking something in his small kitchenette (it turned out to be mac and cheese which looked delicious, but she wouldn't have it out of spite) or is dozing off or has gone upstairs for a moment and then she tries to pick the lock and each time he is onto her, hauling her off physically and depositing her on the couch, telling her sternly to stay put.

One of her arms are bleeding where Derek’s claws have sunk in earlier when she stabbed him. Derek has refused to let her go even then. She has turned away from Derek when he has approached her with a medical kit. In fact she has thrown the small box away, with its content scattered all over the floor. Derek has just given her a look and picked everything up and put them into the box before putting it back into one of his underused kitchen cabinet.

Next it has been the tea-cup. It was fine china. It had mauve flower patterns woven around it. It was something oddly incongruous in Derek's apartment, what with the big hole in the wall and the distressed furniture and the exposed pipes overhead. Well, Derek is weird like that. When it has shattered against the wall too, Derek's face has darkened momentarily and Allison has felt triumphant, thinking she has finally broken through his veneer. But no such luck. Derek has cleaned the floor again, picking up every piece of his precious china with bare hands, never once sparing her so much as a glare.

If there has been a silent rebuke in that, Allison doesn't care.

 

 

_Kate Argent is alive and is spotted exiting a motel not far off Beacon Hills._

_Kate Argent is more than likely stalking Allison Argent._

_Kate Argent is quite possibly not human._

 

“Let me GO!” Allison struggles fruitlessly against the iron hold.

“I can’t.”

Allison stills for a moment and stares at Derek. He is bleeding freely from the nose by now even though the bone is already healing itself. He stares right back with watery eyes. Werewolves are not after all immune to pain, Allison notes with a sick satisfaction. But the tears make the colour of his eyes shine a brilliant shade of moss green and brown and silver and his impossibly long, almost girly eyelashes are all wet and spiked forming a thick frame around them. Allison forgets how to breathe for a moment there. How is it possible or how is it fair for a monster like Derek to posses eyes like that – something that would be more befitting on the face of an angel!

Derek blinks, once, twice and it is like a spell is broken.

 

 

_“You are going to sit it out. All of you. I mean it.”_

_“Dad, no way...”_

_“Mr. Argent...”_

_“No.”_

_"I think he is right."_

_"Thank you sheriff. The Calaveras are waiting at the gas station right outside the town. Trust me we are not going to be outnumbered, even if Kate is working with somebody."_

_“So why are we wasting our time? Let's go.”_

_“You are not going either Derek.”_

_“Like hell I won’t.”_

_“We are going to take care of it. Kate is primarily my responsibility. I needed to do it a long time back.”_

_“She is my responsibility too.”_

_“No Derek. She is really not. This one is on me and you are staying back this time.”_

_“What gave you the impression that you can order me around?”_

_“Derek, for God’s sake, not now. Trust me when I say that I have a job cut out for you.”_

 

Allison has a sneaky suspicion what Derek’s job entails. Especially when her dad drops her off at Derek’s loft of all places.

If it were Scott, she would have made him let her go within two minutes. Unfortunately, her father knows her well.

At first, she assumed Derek was just going with it, like her. It is only when she approaches the door after a good quarter of an hour and Derek drawls from the sofa where the hell she thinks she is going, that it clicked.

Derek is really sitting it out.

Well, she can’t. She needs to put the voices in her head to rest. She needs to make sure she is dead this time.

“What do you mean you can’t?”

“I...” Derek falters.

Allison tries to go for a headbutt using the distraction. Derek, all too aware of her intention, suddenly spins her round, shoving her against the wall, pinning her hands on both sides of her head.

 “I.Just.Can’t. OK?” He growls, sounding pissed off.

Allison narrows her eyes. She knows intellectually she should be afraid. She knows she is testing the patience of a person who is half beast and the beast is showing through the tautness of the jaw, the angry tension of the shoulder, the fingertips that are looking like claws are itching to come out of them and tear at some random human flesh, which in this case will be Allison of course. But she feels incapable of feeling scared altogether. The column of warmth that is Derek’s body, bare inches apart from her, is not frightening at all. The pressure on her delicate wrists, the closeness of his mouth to hers, the heat radiating from the wolf...all are doing something to her, uncoiling something deep and dark, something primal, something not quite human.

Abruptly she surges forward and catches Derek’s lower lip between her teeth, delicately biting down, applying just a little bit of pressure.

Just a little nip and yes...there you go!

A surprised gasp as all air seems to knock right out of Derek’s lungs is all she gets as a response and then she can taste the blood, hot and metallic at the tip of her tongue. Allison licks the surprisingly soft, lush lip, stilled with utter shock. Derek’s breathing hitches as her mouth roves down, on the rough stubbled chin, and her lips moves against the slight cleft on the chin.

She nuzzles the harsh line of his jaw, breathing hard and went all the way to the ears, flushed pink and warm and pliable under the steady pressure of her lips.

“Cut it out.” Derek growls again, more animal than human. Allison shivers involuntary as she feels it with her entire body.

“I am not going to let you go.”

“Are you going to pin me to the wall until my dad gives the signal?”

“I am trying to keep you safe.” Derek's eyes are flashing blue in anger. 

She rolls her eyes.

“Like that works so well on Scott. Why do you keep trying to save people who don't want to be saved? And what makes you think when somebody like Scott never listens to you I will just roll over and surrender?”

“First, worst dog-joke ever. This will get the medal in the bad joke category.”

“I was not trying to be funny.”

Derek ignores her.

“Second, it is none of your business and third, yes I am going to pin you to the wall if needed for the entire day if you are juvenile enough to try to escape. Again.”

Allison eyes him for a few seconds. Derek heaves a sigh.

“Look you...”

Allison crushes her lips against his...lips, that is, warm, soft, utterly kissable and stunned and she takes the opportunity to gently nudge his lips with her tongue until they part again and she is sliding inside the inviting warmth in a slow languorous motion. She cocks her head sideways and sucks in his lower lip now completely healed forming a smooth pout again, even though they are still unresponsive that is until Allison’s tongue follows the rim of his lips with the tip of her tongue, soft and wickedly delicate.

And there is a goddamn moan, there is no doubt about that. Then those lips are moving and parting more to accommodate her tongue and fire and electricity crackling under her skin and the thrill under the base of her spine crackles like she is on a downward carve of a Ferris wheel and her skin is flushed hot and cold, weird sensations...burning and burning....until...

Derek pulls away from her and the next second he is standing at least ten feet away, his expression inscrutable.

Allison smirks. She didn’t even know she _could_ smirk like that. That is something only aunt Kate could do. She was good at smirking.

Allison wipes her mouth with the back of her hand never breaking eye contact with Derek.

“I can do it for hours then.”

Derek’s eyes widen and for a moment he looks like he is going to bolt.

“Or you can just save yourself all the trouble and let me go.”

“No.” Derek shakes his head. “That is not on the table.”

“So what is on the table?” Allison pushes off the wall and stalks towards the werewolf who, surprisingly, takes a step back. A cruel satisfaction curls happily inside her stomach.

“I understand kissing on the lips is _not_ on the table.” She tilts her head.

“What else is there then?” Allison is on toe-to-toe. “What can you offer me?”

“What do you want?” Derek’s face is still unreadable, but his entire stance is screaming how he wants to fucking tuck his non-existent tail between his legs and just _run_. Allison doesn’t know why this is a turn on for her. She doesn’t want to think why.

She doesn’t answer him, but on an impulse she lets her fingers trace the waistband of his dark jeans.

Derek looks down at her hands and looks up into her eyes.

“No.”

“No?”

“I am not going to touch you. Not like that.” Derek shakes his head. “You are seventeen for God’s sake and even though you cannot think me anything other than an animal, I am not really into having hate-sex with children.”

Allison hooks her fingers through his belt loops and looks right into those impossible eyes. She once had a kaleidoscope that held less colours than Derek’s irises.

“You don’t need to touch me.” She breathes out.

She doesn’t know why she is doing this. She doesn’t know why these words that are pouring from her mouth don’t seem foreign, though vaguely at some dim corner of her mind she knows it is not really her. It cannot be her, but she cannot listen to that voice now. Too much is going on right now. She cannot concentrate. The only thing she can do right now is to satisfy this mad hunger that is unfurling inside her and it wants Derek Hale, all of him, torn apart seam by every fucking seam, ravished and broken and shivering under her. She wants him with an intensity that makes her dizzy.

“Or you can let me go.” She says like a refrain, for some part of her is still good. Some saner part of her wants to protect the wolf from herself from what she has become. Some part of her recognises the blankness on Derek’s face may be a mask for some other unsavoury things that she doesn’t want to dwell upon right now.

"No."

"I can fight you then. You may be strong, but it won't be pretty."

"Allison," Derek sighs.

"Do you think you can bite me? Claw my skin open? Like you did to my mother?"

Derek is silent for a beat and the flash of hurt across his face shouldn't find an echo in her chest. 

"Do you want to?" She smirks again to shake off the momentary weakness. "Tell me it is your secret wish. To sink your claws into me, thinking about my aunt. You want to kill her. You have always wanted to kill her so bad and here I am offering you a chance at it."

"Stop, just...stop." Derek hisses. "You don't know what you are saying."

"But I do." Allison says in a singsong voice. "I am bored and you are to keep me entertained."

Derek’s eyes narrow.

“You have a thing for werewolves. Isn’t it? Or you just want a piece of me. Just randomly cut it out and see if I bleed. Just for fun.”

Allison doesn’t say anything, but smiles sweetly at him. Again a part of her mind is screaming in rage that this is not her. This is not what she wants. There is no way. But that is just a tiny-whiny part. She is a born hunter and her blood boils under the skin in excitement as the predator is turning into a prey right in front of her. It is so fascinating to witness.

A prey she must bring down to his knees.

“Well, know what...I am going to let you for it is nothing new.” Derek whispers, eyes blown wide and wary and unblinking.

She doesn’t pause to think what to make of _that_!

“Why?” She asks, not that she needs the answer when she has already made up her mind.

“Because I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You can always knock me unconscious.”

“So that you have another excuse to call me a monster? One who hits a defenceless girl?”

“I am not defenceless.”

Derek raises an incredulous eyebrow at her.

Well he may have a point. She has left her daggers at the coffee table in her excitement.

Rookie mistake.

But then, she doesn’t always need a weapon to hurt somebody for werewolf or not, Derek is a man. He has made a rookie mistake too by underestimating her. He has offered her a piece of him.

It is easy to hurt somebody who wouldn’t defend himself. It is easy to hurt knowing he would never raise a finger to hurt you back.

Allison is not sure where she learnt that philosophy, but she knows it by heart.

She smiles at Derek - cool and predatory and the odd thrum in her veins intensifies.

...

“I did not want this. I did not ask for this. It is not _me_...”

Scott is sprawled across her bed and recounting how he has wolfed out in front of Kira’s parents of all people in the middle of a family dinner. He bolted of course, without seeing their reaction, but he knows it is pretty much over.

Why is he here again? Oh right. It was Allison who offered him to come over with some bullshit excuse like she is feeling low because of the Kate incident. She was the one to ask about him and Kira. She was the one who offered him a shoulder to cry on, as a friend. She was the one who told him he could vent anything to her and she would listen and not be a shitty friend any more.

She mostly lied.

She just wants to drown out the voices.

But right now the voices seem a better option than Scott. Allison pays only half attention to Scott’s angry tirade. It seems like he has been at it for hours, months in fact. He has never really stopped since he got bitten. Sometimes he seems to be apparently reconciled to it, but every time a crisis appears of wolfy nature, bam he goes again.

Allison is suddenly tired. God, she loves the fool, she was _in_ love with the stupid, awkward, good-hearted, brave and kind boy, but she is tired of holding him up, to be the beacon in the supposed darkness of his mind. She doesn’t want to be the one to break it to him that the darkness is always there and that that the bite doesn’t have anything to do with it. She doesn’t want to be the one robbing a kid of the existence of Santa Clause.

Then out of the blue she remembers Derek.

The patient set of his mouth when he offered her a piece of him. He was not even resigned or sad or hopeless or angry or frustrated. He was fucking patient! Like it didn’t matter at all. It was a chore and even less annoying than doing the laundry.

Then she remembered the taste of blood in her mouth as she bit down, breaking the flesh stretched taut across the strong shoulders. The sense of triumph seeing the powerful man on his knees in front of her. She remembers the weight of the dagger in her hand as she drew a shallow line across Derek’s throat, just breaking the skin enough to see a thin red line across the exposed, vulnerable skin.

She remembers how he just surrendered, letting her undress him slowly, revealing the glorious skin inch by inch, just staring into her eyes like he is searching for something.

Those fucking eyes. She couldn't bear the look in them and so she concentrated elsewhere. Into drawing patterns on his skin with her daggers. Patterns that disappeared within seconds, leaving pink scars in their wake and that too would disappear soon.

She knew even if she had seriously hurt him he wouldn’t have made a sound. He would have probably drawn a sharp breath, like he did when she took his cock in her hands and jerked him languidly, but not to make him come. That was not the end-goal really. Her hands worked only to bring him to the edge and to stop and to start again. She would stop as he started to arch upward and remove her hands and start again and stop again and start again and stop again, countless times until he was just panting under her ministration, reduced to a mass of shaking limbs, cold sweat breaking on his skin, lips bloodied by his own very human teeth, bunching the bed-sheet in a desperate death-grip.

Derek’s phone beeped with an incoming message then. Allison held it out to him.

_It is done._

The message said.

It was a group message from her father.

Allison thought she would feel something. Relief or sorrow. But she felt neither. She could feel nothing except for a warm satisfaction finally meeting Derek’s wide eyes which had stopped searching her face. Instead there was something else. Like resignation and sorrow. So much sorrow that made her catch her breath.

Then she smiled sharply and surged forward.

“I guess it is time.” She breathed over his lips, hovering inches above, not touching his skin.

Derek stared back, again with the patient look, though he was pale and out of breath and barely holding himself in his skin. His lower lip quivered even as he held her gaze and then he nodded once jerkily.

Allison was pleased to think that he was not even capable of forming words.

She patted his cheek now glossy with sweat and climbed down from the bed, fully clothed, for Derek hadn’t touched her once.

Just like he had promised.

And she took her fill, watching Derek come apart.

Though she would have been happier if Derek was vocal. She would have loved to have him beg, for mercy, for release, for anything at all. Maybe she would have taken pity on him. But as it was, Derek was silent except for the increasing raggedness of his breathing.

There was no sound, not even a whimper.

So she left him like that, sprawled out all naked and vulnerable and unsatiated and waltzed out of the loft.

“...stupid decisions. It all comes down to Derek somehow. He was such a selfish bastard...” Scott is still rambling on.

Allison rushes to the bathroom and barely has the time to lock the door before heaving over the commode.

Nothing comes out of her mouth except bile, but she keeps on heaving...until her throat is raw and her eyes burn with unshed tears. 

When Scott calls her she shakily apologises and asks him to leave her alone for some time. Good friend that he is, Scott listens to her and leaves after asking repeatedly to call him if she needs anything, anything at all.

She needs that kaleidoscope from her childhood back, but she guesses she has broken it to pieces...and that it is beyond repair.


	8. 'He doesn't look a thing like Jesus'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, published my original work. If you like my fic, don't forget to drop by at my website at   
> [www.theauthorkamalika.org](https://www.theauthorkamalika.org/)

Allison stands in front of the door, without knocking. As is usual.

_What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?_

Derek slides the door open after half a minute. As usual.

_Don’t open the door._

_Don’t let me get near you._

_Don’t let me in, you fool._

_Don’t..._

_Don’t..._

_Don’t..._

_Don’t..._

_Don’t..._

Derek crosses his arms across his chest and stares at her. He is wearing nothing but a pair of faded blue jeans. Even his feet are bare and his toes are looking oddly vulnerable against the cold grey floor.

Allison snaps her eyes to Derek’s face, trying not to rove them up his torso in slow motion (the urge is definitely there).

“I...”

Derek arches one eyebrow at her, challengingly.

“I...”

Is there a theme forming? She standing at the door of Derek’s loft while the werewolf scowls at her from the doorway and holding these weird half-conversations which leave her with the impression that a hell lot more are said, other than the words actually exchanged.

Though he is not scowling right now. He is not resigned and sad or wrecked either, like he looked the last time she saw him. He is just looking at her expectantly. He is waiting for her to open and he is ready for whatever game she has up her sleeves.

Derek doesn’t move aside to invite her in. Instead he suddenly takes a step towards her and Allison backs up instinctively. Derek doesn’t try to close the distance though. He just slides the door close behind him and faces her, hands folded over his chest again.

Thank God he has found an iota of self-preservation from somewhere.

In the harsh light of the corridor his face looks pale and there seem to be shadows beneath his eyes, like bruises. His hair is not spiked up like it usually is, but is hanging in short, limp bangs, framing his pale forehead.

“I think you should stay away from me.” She blurts out even before she knows what she has come to tell him in the first place.

Derek cocks his head and frowns. Allison sympathises with the confusion on his face. She could easily have texted it to him.

“I think everybody should stay away from me.”

Hell, no! _That_ – she definitely didn’t plan to blurt out.

“You didn’t kill those people.”

His voice comes in the same low gravel as always, but it unsettles something in her stomach. She is not sure if it is a good or bad feeling.

And why does he think like that? Why does he keep on insisting in her innocence when both of them know what they know? What the hell is wrong with him?

“How can you be so sure? Kate didn’t...”

“I would have smelt you.” Derek says without any inflection. “On the crime scene.”

Oh.

She doesn’t know why she is thrown by the completely logical explanation. Did she hope for something else instead, like Derek declaring some bone-deep knowledge how he knows it couldn’t have been her combined with a soul-searching gaze, something far from the cool and assessing stare with which he is regarding her now? Wouldn’t it have been ironic, coming from him that he of all people should believe she is _not_ in fact capable of murder? After seeing first-hand what she is capable of, after experiencing it, he is still willing to vouch for her supposed innocence?

“Chris said that the Calaveras said it was a berserker.”

Derek using her father’s first name continues to startle her.

“Which Kate created. She had the power to do it as a were-jaguar. Her bite wouldn’t turn humans into a were-creature, but it would unlock something primal in them.” Allison parrots her father’s words. “That they would act like an animal at her bidding and would even kill for her.”

She takes a deep breath before forming the next sentence.

“What if I am the berserker?”

“Got any unexplained hickey lately?”

For some inexplicable reason that makes her giggle and she starts at the sound and stops abruptly. She hasn’t made the sound for ages.

Derek doesn’t seem amused though. He raises both his eyebrows impatiently, waiting for an answer.

“No.” She giggles again. “No...hickey.”

Derek shrugs, like _there you go_ and turns back presumably to open the door again to slip back into his apartment.

“Wait, it cannot be that simple.”

Derek turns to face her again.

“What is...”

She falters, but Derek waits patiently. He doesn’t look exasperated as she thinks he probably has every right to be. He doesn’t panic, doesn’t fall over himself to offer false reassurances, doesn’t rush her, doesn’t rush _to_ her, doesn’t say everything will be ok.

He simply waits.

Allison counts to ten in her head before daring to voice it out, finally, without sinking to her knees.

“What is wrong with me then?”

Derek considers her question and she can see him actually mulling over it. Giving it a serious thought.

“I would have told you to talk to Deaton.”

“But you won’t.”

“I am not sure I can trust him.”

“He knows things.”

“Which he holds close to his chest.”

“So what else?”

“Try to start from the source. Find out when it started and go from there.”

“Deaton may be the start.”

“Then you talk to him. He is not harmful whatever he is.”

“Why are you helping me?”

Derek sighs and looks infinitely tired.

“I was in the middle of something and if you don’t mind...”

Then it clicks.

“Oh God...you have someone in your...oh, I didn’t realise. I am sorry.”

Derek looks amused.

“I am not making out with my uncle who came back from dead.” He huffs. “Necrophilia is not on my bucket list.”

Allison looks pointedly at his bare chest. Derek rolls his eyes.

“I was working out.”

“It is eight in the evening.”

“So?”

“Why don’t you get a damn tv and stop bothering your neighbours with...this?” She waves a hand at Derek’s torso.

“Why don’t you get a life and stop bothering _me_?”

Allison huffs out a laugh. She doesn’t even know why. It is actually a mean thing to say, though his tone is not bitter. Grumpy and a little bit _100%-done_ , but not bitter.

“Ok.” She concedes, still smiling.

“Ok?” Derek cocks an eyebrow at her again.

“Ok.” She says, walking backwards.

...

That night she is finally able to keep down solid food after seven days after Kate is put down by her dad and the Calaveras.

When Lydia and Kira asked, she said she was trying out the new liquid diet. Good friends that they were, they didn’t comment on the jutted collarbones and the thinning arms and the shaking hands. Yet.

Lydia is pretty close to breaking point, Allison can tell. Kira is more discreet and she is always too afraid to give offence. She is the gentlest soul Allison has ever encountered, rivaling Scott even.

Wait at minute...Derek didn’t, after all....

She suddenly realises it with absolute certainty it was no self-preservation. When Derek closed the door behind him, not letting her enter today, he was protecting her – from his psycho uncle.

...

“Dad.”

“Yes sweetheart?”

“Why did you leave me at Derek’s?”

Mr. Argent glances up from the newspaper.

“He is not our enemy any more Allison. He is...well, he is not a friend either. An ally, if you will and he fights on our side.”

“But why him?”

Her dad narrows his eyes at her.

“Are you going to tell me in a straight face that you wouldn’t have made Scott let you go in two minutes flat?”

That is exactly what Allison thought, not that she is going to confess it. She takes another route instead.

“I just cannot reconcile it with what he stands for us.”

Mr. Argent puts his paper aside and gives her his undivided attention this time.

“What _does_ he stand for? For us?”

“We kill his kind dad.” Allison feels exasperated. Why he just couldn’t see? They cannot become allies all of a sudden fighting on the same side notwithstanding. It is just plain wrong.

Suddenly her dad is straightening up in his seat.

“Did he...Allison did he do anything to make you uncomfortable?”

“What...no!”

“Sweetheart you need to tell me if he tried anything. I am going to skin that bastard alive right where he stands if he –”

Allison feels a hysteric laughter trying to burst through her lips, but she restrains herself. It will hardly help her situation.

“Whoa, dad. He didn’t do anything. Well, except for stopping me from leaving.”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice that scratch on your arm.” Mr. Argent glares at his daughter.

“Dad, it is nothing. I stabbed him ok? It was an accident.”

_And I am pretty sure I raped him too, but it was not an accident._

 “You stabbed him?”

“I didn’t mean to. Ok?” Allison is now sorry she has ever broached the topic.

“You stabbed him and he just gave you a scratch on the arm?”

“Yeah.” Allison mumbles, picking at her breakfast. She should be ravenous, especially after throwing up the steak after waking up in cold sweats at three a.m. in the morning. But a few mouthful of scrambled eggs are all she can manage as of now.

She pushes the plate away from her.

“Why?”

“Why...what?” Allison looks up, panicked, because for a moment there she wonders if she has said something aloud, something incriminating.

“Why would you stab him? He was only trying to protect you. On my request.”

Allison shrugs.

“I was angry and he was there. It is no big deal. He healed.”

Her dad’s stare changes imperceptibly. She knows it because she knows every crease and plains of his face and is closely acquainted with every changing shade of the colour of his eyes. Her father has always been her rock through everything. They never got the chance to bond a lot for her mother was always there and then there was aunt Kate. With a cool big sister like her who needed a dad who just worried over her constantly and wanted her to keep up good grades and yelled at Kate when she neglected her studies for archery practice or argued with her mother that she needed to do regular things like a regular girl and that she was not a soldier to a cause. He thought he was being discreet, but Allison’s eavesdropping capability knows no bound. Probably the huntress blood in her. She always had this sneaky suspicion that she was being groomed for something life-altering by aunt Kate and her mother and that her father was the only person who stood between that _something_ and Allison.

There was a time she hated his over-protectiveness. She worshiped Kate, her easy confidence, her fearlessness, her devil-may-care attitude, her effortless sex-appeal that made boys turn into a goo in their shoes. Her single-minded sense of purpose. Though she didn’t know what the purpose was, but she was sure there was one and soon she would be privy to that secret.

She wanted to be her and resented the man who seemed hell bent on trying to remove her as far away from aunt Kate’s influence as physically possible.

But even then, he was the rock. He has always been her rock.

So when her father looks at her like...like he is shocked that she can incite an emotion like disgust in him, that she cringes back and tries to think how exactly they have reached this point.

“As I said,” he starts slowly, like tasting the words in his mouth. “Derek is an ally. We don’t hurt our allies needlessly _even_ if they heal supernaturally. He heals doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

And Allison cringes visibly this time, not at the tone of the rebuke which is milder than she deserves (she knows), but because...

Allison doesn’t have the time to close the door this time. So the next thing she knows her father is crouched by her side on the cold tiles, one hand bunching her hair at the back, away from her face and another pressed flat against her heaving chest. Even after she has thrown up her entire breakfast she keeps on heaving until she is almost passing out in exhaustion.

_He heals doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt._

Jesus! If only her father knew...

 


	9. 'Truth and my lies right now are falling like the rain...'

“Hey, Ally. It's so good to see you.”

“I can see you're putting your scarves to good use.” Allison smiles at Isaac.

“Don’t get me started on the weather,” Isaac groans. “It is awful. Cold and damp and generally very depressing.”

“Are you OK though?”

“Yeah.” Isaac smiles and it is brighter than she remembers. “I am OK. Living with Jackson is surprisingly not as much of a punishment as I thought it would be.”

Allison laughs and though she is mostly pretending, she has heard somewhere if you pretend hard enough, you somehow end up feeling true emotion.

“How's he doing?” She asks.

“Not bad, considering he was murdering around people the last time I knew him.” Isaac smirks. Then he becomes serious. “He has changed a lot. Mellowed down completely. He's still kind of incredulous that he has people like Derek or Scott in his corner.”

There is that name again. Allison groans inwardly. The one she wants to avoid at all costs.

“Derek is helping him?” She still cannot keep her curiosity at bay. “How?”

“Derek was the one who taught him control before he came here,” Isaac informs. “And he was the one who contacted a local werewolf pack, family friends of Hales and requested them to take care of us.” Isaac pauses. “Both of us.”

“Derek bit him. So it _is_ his responsibility,” Allison points out just to be argumentative.

She cannot believe the person she thought to be an irredeemable monster for such a long time to be turning out to be...well...good, for there is really no other adjective for it. What Derek has done for her notwithstanding, it irks her.

“Derek bit Jackson because he sought the bite and pestered Derek for it. Repeatedly,” Isaac says patiently. “Afterwards, he refused to join our pack or even to acknowledge Derek even when Derek said he could always come to him for help. He refused Derek as his alpha. So Derek doesn’t owe him a damn thing.”

Though his voice hasn’t risen, there is a glint in Isaac’s eyes visible even on the computer screen.

“I thought...” Allison blurts out and then she stops.

“What?” Isaac asks curiously. “What did you think Ally?”

“I didn’t know you felt this strongly about Derek,” Allison mumbles. “Since he kind of...” she trails off.

Everybody knows now or has figured it out why exactly Derek behaved the way he did towards Isaac. Even after Isaac aligned himself with Scott, Derek never stopped to care for Isaac. It was as plain as daylight. But the last time they met, Isaac was pretty nonchalant about Derek.

Isaac smiles at her. Kind and understanding, though Allison for her life cannot think why he should be understanding towards her.

“Derek is not a monster, Ally.” He says gently and Allison jerks. She doesn’t think Derek is a monster anymore. She really doesn’t, still...

“He tries. He is,” Isaac bites his lip, “he tries so hard to do the right thing that you wouldn’t actually believe it.”

But she would...she would.

“I've been with him the most than all of you combined together and take it from me,” Isaac continues. “Derek Hale is a good man and I regret some of the things I hurled at him in my anger and he...he just sat there and took it all. He let me hurt him with my words and I thought he was this emotionless brick-wall of a man. God, Ally, his sister was dying and I was so callous. I just kept going on even when I could see the hurt fleeting across his face.”

Isaac sighs heavily.

“And he just sat there and said nothing. Or wait, he did...he acknowledged that he was lonely and if you know him, really know him, you would know what that confession meant to him. And I just threw his pain right into his face.”

Allison cannot take it anymore.

“Hey Isaac, my dad is calling me. I gotta go.” She waves at her laptop.

“It was good talking to you.” Isaac smiles easily. “Take care of yourself, OK? And don’t be a stranger.”

Why is everybody telling that to her nowadays? Is she really doing that? Letting a stranger take over her?

She smiles back at Isaac but feels her lips wobbling and the smile is not quite a smile. Isaac, of course, kind sweet Isaac, never comments on it.

She sits on her bed, staring at the wall a good half an hour after closing the laptop. She cannot name the churning emotions in her. She thought it would be a good distraction to Skype with Isaac and that she can forget everything for a while. She doesn’t even know what exactly she is trying to forget before Isaac starts talking about Derek.

God, the man is everywhere. It seems he has permeated her entire friend circle, her topics of conversation, her family, her entire being and there is simply no escape from him!

Problem is, Allison is not entirely sure she _wants_ to escape from him.

**Author's Note:**

> Read my original fantasy novel on my website [here](https://www.theauthorkamalika.org/).


End file.
